All Four First Vision Accounts Published In 11 Languages

[Teancum]

Just an FYI

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865627253/Joseph-Smith-Papers-releases-First-Vision-accounts-in-10-languages.html?pg=all

[bluebell]

I saw this yesterday and thought it was pretty cool.

 

I honestly never really understood why people get so upset by the different accounts.

[bcuzbcuz]

I saw this yesterday and thought it was pretty cool.

 

I honestly never really understood why people get so upset by the different accounts.

You do not understand why people get upset with the different accounts. Have you ever spent any time in court? Compare the various accounts, written by JS or the accounts he authored to be written. The stories vary greatly about significant details. Who did Joseph see? What did the person say? What did the two persons say?

If a jury hears four different accounts of the same story, with variation about the significant details, they will question the veracity of the accounts.

Write a summary of what you think are the significant details from a collection of all four accounts. What do the accounts all boil down to? You will have trouble formulating the story into one coherent telling of the story.

[ALarson]

To me, what is more damaging is that IIRC, neither Joseph nor Lucy Mack Smith included the first vision in their first histories.  Wouldn't that have been an essential thing to include?

 

(Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm just going from memory.  I know Lucy didn't include it in her first history that Brigham Young tried to have destroyed, but I need to confirm that it wasn't included in the original history of the church dictated by Joseph Smith (?) ).

[bluebell]

You do not understand why people get upset with the different accounts. Have you ever spent any time in court? Compare the various accounts, written by JS or the accounts he authored to be written. The stories vary greatly about significant details. Who did Joseph see? What did the person say? What did the two persons say?

If a jury hears four different accounts of the same story, with variation about the significant details, they will question the veracity of the accounts.

Write a summary of what you think are the significant details from a collection of all four accounts. What do the accounts all boil down to? You will have trouble formulating the story into one coherent telling of the story.

 

What I mean is, many people who have trouble with the different accounts of the 1st vision, have no problem at all with the different accounts of Paul's vision in the NT, or even the many many different and contradictory accounts of Jesus' actions and words in the four gospels.

 

Seems like a double standard.

[Gray]

What I mean is, many people who have trouble with the different accounts of the 1st vision, have no problem at all with the different accounts of Paul's vision in the NT, or even the many many different and contradictory accounts of Jesus' actions and words in the four gospels.

 

Seems like a double standard.

 

I think people who have a problem with the FV accounts tend to have a problem with the various Bible accounts as well. 

[bluebell]

I think people who have a problem with the FV accounts tend to have a problem with the various Bible accounts as well. 

 

That could be true, but it doesn't match my personal experience.  The ones i've spoken with are Christian or have left the church but joined a different Christian religion. 

[cinepro]

To me, what is more damaging is that IIRC, neither Joseph nor Lucy Mack Smith included the first vision in their first histories.  Wouldn't that have been an essential thing to include?

 

(Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm just going from memory.  I know Lucy didn't include it in her first history that Brigham Young tried to have destroyed, but I need to confirm that it wasn't included in the original history of the church dictated by Joseph Smith (?) ).

 

The Church has published the original draft of Lucy Smith's history of Joseph Smith.  The early Palmyra years are described starting on page 39, and Moroni's visit is described on page 40.  There doesn't appear to be any mention of the "First Vision".

 

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845&p=39

I've posted this before, but here's an important quote from Kathleen Flake that puts the First Vision into the context of LDS history:

 

Many factors contributed to the relative lack of interest in the First Vision by believers and nonbelievers. Most have been identified by Latter-day Saint scholars in a variety of articles attempting to validate the historicity of the event or its relationship to developments in Latter-day Saint doctrine. Though these studies disagree on the theological implications of the First Vision, what matter for our purposes is that all agree, in the words of James Allen, author of the most extensive study, that "the weight of evidence would suggest that it [the First Vision] was not a matter of common knowledge, even among church members, in the earliest years of Mormon History." Allen further concludes that this oversight continued until 1883 when the First Vision was first employed to teach the Latter-day Saint doctrine of deity. Even here, however, Allen can only characterize the 1883 sermon as having "implied" that a major purpose of the vision was to "restore a true knowledge of God." While appreciation for Smith's First Vision continued to grow in the last decade of the nineteenth century, not until the early twentieth century did it move to the fore of Latter-day Saint self-representation. As Allen's research makes apparent, the turning point in the status of the First Vision occurred during the administration of Joseph F. Smith and was contemporaneous with the Smoot hearing and its immediate aftermath. The story was first used in Sunday school texts in 1905, in priesthood instructional manuals in 1909, as a separate missionary tract in 1910, and in histories of the church in 1912. Moreover, the Smith family farm in Palmyra, New York, was purchased by church members in 1907 and passed into church ownership in 1916. A grove of trees on the site where the young prophet is assumed to have received his First Vision became an increasingly popular pilgrimage site culminating in centennial celebrations in 1920. By midcentury, Smith's account of his theophany was denominated "The Joseph Smith Story." Eventually it would be granted the status of "the beginning point, the fountainhead, of the restoration of the gospel in this dispensation." In the First Vision, Joseph F. Smith had found a marker of Latter-day Saint identity whose pedigree was as great as - would be made greater than - that of plural marriage for the twentieth-century Latter-day Saints.

Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Kathleen Flake, Page 118

Google Books

Edited April 28, 2015 by cinepro

[LoudmouthMormon]

I think people who have a problem with the FV accounts tend to have a problem with the various Bible accounts as well. 

I've had maybe a dozen FV account discussions over the years, with maybe 30-40 people.  Pretty much they all went the same way:

 

Them: "Smith has differing first vision accounts!  [give details]"

Me: "So, do you have the same problem with the harmony issues with the gospels, or other internal contradictions?"

Them: "What are you talking about?"

Me: [give details]

Them: "See - Mormons argue against the bible!  I knew it! Tell us again how you claim to be Christian, when you attack the bible?"

 

So yeah, maybe I need a better circle of arguing buddies, but in my experience, folks harping on FV accounts are usually ignorant of similar issues with the bible, and respond to hearing about it by attacking the messanger.

[JLHPROF]

I saw this yesterday and thought it was pretty cool.

 

I honestly never really understood why people get so upset by the different accounts.

 

Always reminds me of the differing accounts of Christ's resurrection in the 4 gospels.  Yet no Christian assumes they are made up.  I think the four versions were allowed to unfold that way as a type and shadow of the gospels.

[bcuzbcuz]

What I mean is, many people who have trouble with the different accounts of the 1st vision, have no problem at all with the different accounts of Paul's vision in the NT, or even the many many different and contradictory accounts of Jesus' actions and words in the four gospels.

 

Seems like a double standard.

I agree. Although, I think the incongruencies of the NT are indemic of stories written down after the fact. The four gospels were not even written by people who actually witnessed many of the events.

[bluebell]

I agree. Although, I think the incongruencies of the NT are indemic of stories written down after the fact. The four gospels were not even written by people who actually witnessed many of the events.

 

Isn't that also true of the 1st vision accounts though?  All were written down after the fact and some by people who were not there.

[Gray]

That could be true, but it doesn't match my personal experience.  The ones i've spoken with are Christian or have left the church but joined a different Christian religion. 

 

Most of the people I've encountered online who have lost faith over the matter are atheists or agnostics. 

[Darren10]

You do not understand why people get upset with the different accounts. Have you ever spent any time in court? Compare the various accounts, written by JS or the accounts he authored to be written. The stories vary greatly about significant details. Who did Joseph see? What did the person say? What did the two persons say?

If a jury hears four different accounts of the same story, with variation about the significant details, they will question the veracity of the accounts.

Write a summary of what you think are the significant details from a collection of all four accounts. What do the accounts all boil down to? You will have trouble formulating the story into one coherent telling of the story.

The jury won't be upset at all if the account of a story was refined to focus on the aspects they would want to focus on.

[Nevo]

Isn't that also true of the 1st vision accounts though?  All were written down after the fact and some by people who were not there.

 

The problem isn't discrepancies among the second-hand accounts; it's the discrepancies among the first-hand accounts. Joseph's story changed over time.

[Boanerges]

I say bravo! Now my missionary son in South America can use them.

[bluebell]

The problem isn't discrepancies among the second-hand accounts; it's the discrepancies among the first-hand accounts. Joseph's story changed over time.

Which is not at all unique when someone shares an experience over time and/or with different audiences.

[bluebell]

The problem isn't discrepancies among the second-hand accounts; it's the discrepancies among the first-hand accounts. Joseph's story changed over time.

 

For example, this is what i found from a university's website on communication. It was the first example i came to after about 30 seconds of googling.

 

Communication, both spoken and written, is always addressed to an audience, a set of listeners or readers you are intending to convey information to or have some effect upon.

 

Speakers communicate differently to different audiences. To take a simple example, people tell their grandmothers about their new “significant other” in a different way than they tell their best friend. Similarly, people speak about trees differently with their high school biology teacher than they do with their younger siblings; and speakers often need to make arguments about public policy differently to Republicans than to Democrats.

[Nevo]

Which is not at all unique when someone shares an experience over time and/or with different audiences.

 

True, but if the story changes significantly from one telling to the next, people might rightly ask which version is correct.

[bluebell]

True, but if the story changes significantly from one telling to the next, people might rightly ask which version is correct.

 

I agree.  But that's different than deciding that everything the person has ever said must be a lie.

[Teancum]

I saw this yesterday and thought it was pretty cool.

 

I honestly never really understood why people get so upset by the different accounts.

Of the many historical criticisms against the church, at least for me, this has been the least of my concerns,

[Teancum]

Always reminds me of the differing accounts of Christ's resurrection in the 4 gospels.  Yet no Christian assumes they are made up.  I think the four versions were allowed to unfold that way as a type and shadow of the gospels.

Other Christians may not have a problem with the varying resurrection accounts. Skeptics however do have a problem with them.

[bluebell]

Of the many historical criticisms against the church, at least for me, this has been the least of my concerns,

Exactly.

This issue just seems like really small potatoes. Yet I know someone who basically left the church over it (at least that is what she says). I don't get it.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

I agree.  But that's different than deciding that everything the person has ever said must be a lie.

For me (as an agnostic mormon theist), the problem isn't that Joseph told the story multiple different ways. That part is human and completely expected. Science have shown that every time we retell a story we rewrite the memory and change it. Science shows us how stories change overtime and they don't get more accurate over time. I think from the historical record and from Joseph's account, it is clear that Joseph had a powerful conversion experience and vision around 1820. I think his earlier accounts are probably the best. 

 

The problem for me (and it's a problem for me with all discrepancies in scripture) is what the church tries to make of the Joseph's sacred experience today. They wrest it from it's original context, and use it in a way that is not in line with what actually happened and certainly doesn't match with how Joseph used the experience.

 

Just two snips from a youth lesson on the first vision:

 

That one revelation answers all the [questions] regarding God and his divine personality ....

[The first vision] "is the most important event since the Resurrection of Jesus Christ"

 

For me you can't have it both ways. If the first vision really answered all the questions regarding God and his divine personality, you'd think that Joseph would have been clued in on this too and would have been more consistent in his accounts. If it was the most important event since the resurrection of Jesus Christ why was it ignored by the early church and early prophets of the restoration.

 

In my mind the different accounts to the first vision (and many other discrepancies in scripture) show how muddled God-to-human revelation really is. If God exists and he speaks to man, even his prophets are "looking through a glass darkly." These things inform my every day decisions. If after careful pondering, prayer, and consideration I come to a different decision than God's Prophet, I run with it.

Edited April 28, 2015 by SeekingUnderstanding

[carbon dioxide]

For me you can't have it both ways. If the first vision really answered all the questions regarding God and his divine personality, you'd think that Joseph would have been clued in on this too and would have been more consistent in his accounts. If it was the most important event since the resurrection of Jesus Christ why was it ignored by the early church and early prophets of the restoration.

 

In my mind the different accounts to the first vision (and many other discrepancies in scripture) show how muddled God-to-human revelation really is. If God exists and he speaks to man, even his prophets are "looking through a glass darkly." These things inform my every day decisions. If after careful pondering, prayer, and consideration I come to a different decision than God's Prophet, I run with it.

I really don't think Joseph could have honestly expected that people would nitpick things the way they do.  When something of interest happens in my life, I often don't tell it the same way to different people.  Some part of the experience I might put more emphasis on than another part.  Depending on what point that feel more impressed to talk about.  Though the details are different, I don't find anything that contradicts the other.  For example even though the 1832 account does not mention Joseph seeing two personages, he does not deny that two appeared to him.  An omission of a fact or detail is not a denial of that fact or detail.  If Joe and Steve tell Mary that the party is at 8 PM and Mary goes to Sally and says "Joe told me the party is at 8" even though she did not mention Steve to Sally does not mean that Mary is claiming that Steve is not present.