Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard "Face to Face" Event: Dealing with doubts

[Amulek]

13 hours ago, Thinking said:

Publishing an article is quite different from inclusion in the curriculum.

Not including it in the curriculum is a good explanation for why more people don't know about it. 

But publishing it in the church's official magazine for public consumption is good evidence that it wasn't being hidden though. 

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, Duncan said:

You said, "very first account" and I assumed you meant when did Joseph start telling folks but I didn't know you meant the first journal account that is still around today

Sorry, I meant first written account.  I assume that the "very first [oral] account" was when he returned home from the grove and told his father what had happened.

[stemelbow]

13 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Not including it in the curriculum is a good explanation for why more people don't know about it. 

But publishing it in the church's official magazine for public consumption is good evidence that it wasn't being hidden though. 

Well that's kind the issue.  When was it published?  

[rockpond]

30 minutes ago, Amulek said:

 

The Brethren teach that Joseph Smith experienced a theophany wherein he saw both God the Father and his son Jesus Christ. 

1. I believe that is both true and accurate. Do you not? 

 

2. First time I encountered information about the multiple First Vision accounts in a church environment was while I was at BYU. I took church history classes from Larry Porter and Don Cannon, and I remember Professor Cannon even having photocopies of some of the older accounts that he passed out. It was pretty cool. 

 

3. Maybe I misunderstood what you said earlier, but if you're 47 now then that means you would have been 15-16 when the 1985-1986 Ensigns were published. Are you honestly saying you wouldn't have known how to find a copy of the Ensign when you where in High School? Come on. Back then everybody had a subscription to the Ensign (and the Friend if they had kids), and if your parents didn't get the Ensign the Library - what we call the materials center now - always had at least one copy. 

 

4. If you had been reading the Ensign, you would have run across them - whether you were looking for them or not. 

I know a lot of teenagers who don't read the Ensign though, so that doesn't make you atypical I don't think. But just because you weren't interested in reading what the church was putting out, doesn't mean that the church was hiding it from you.

 

5. I think it is more accurate to say that there is one account of the First Vision that only discusses one personage - not that only one personage appeared to him. 

 

6. How so?

 

7. Well, you didn't need to learn about it that way. You could have learned about it by simply reading what the church had been publishing during your lifetime. 

 

8. Why not include it in the curriculum? Probably because there isn't sufficient time to give the subject adequate treatment in the 40-50 minutes allotted for the average Sunday School class. In fact, I think the only place that would really fit for something like that would be a church history / institute class. 

9. And again, I'm not really convinced that this is an example of 'hiding things from members' to begin with. When you publish something for public consumption then you, by definition, are not hiding something. Or, if you think you are, you are doing a really really bad job of it.

10. Currently, the church has all of the accounts available on its website - both with original document scans and transcriptions. It's really pretty cool. But I suspect that the majority of church members have never bothered to visit the site. I suppose they could argue that the information superhighway is just so vast now that by publishing the information online the church is really just trying to hide the information like a needle in a haystack. I wouldn't find such a statement convincing though. 

I have numbered your comments to allow me to easily respond.  I hope that's okay.  It was a long post with a lot of questions/points to respond to.

1.  I tend to believe that the vision was most likely both Father and Son.  But given Joseph's differing accounts, I'm not confident.  It seems for whatever reason, it may not have been totally clear in his memory.

2.  You seem to be an outlier among people I know.

3.  &  4.  I disagree that "everybody" has a subscription to the Ensign. But, my family did.  However, as a teenager, I was reading the New Era, not the Ensign.

5.  It would be accurate to say that Joseph's earliest written accounts differ.

6.  That's a very broad question.  You'll have to clarify but I am not really interested in departing too far from the topic of the thread.

7.  This speaks to the question I have asked multiple times on the board -- When did the church first publish the text of the 1832 account.  The articles you cited don't have it.  I know it is now available on LDS.org and the gospel library app but I believe that's a relatively new addition.

8.  I disagree that there is insufficient time.  3 hours every Sunday, seminary, institute, general conference... there is plenty of time.

9.  The evidence of "hiding" regarding the 1832 first vision account is that it was removed from church archives and placed in Joseph Fielding Smith's safe rather than being published and heralded as the first written account of our founding prophet's theophany.

10. I think many members don't know (or didn't know) and would not have even known what to look for.  I agree, that doesn't mean that the Church is hiding anything.  But, since the Brethren haven't really publicly spoken about the multiple first vision accounts until very recently, they can't be surprised when members discover the information from sources outside of the church and are upset by it.

[rockpond]

24 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Not including it in the curriculum is a good explanation for why more people don't know about it. 

But publishing it in the church's official magazine for public consumption is good evidence that it wasn't being hidden though. 

Where and when was the text of the 1832 account first published by the church?  How about the texts of the other versions?

[Jeanne]

The thing is ...as for me anyway...I can just see myself , a fourteen year old in 1970...wondering ...hey, I wonder if there is some more vision stories???   I should check out the Improvement Era and see if there is something there...(my parernts could not afford church mags..)...anyway...shoot me.  Should have known.

[rockpond]

5 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

The thing is ...as for me anyway...I can just see myself , a fourteen year old in 1970...wondering ...hey, I wonder if there is some more vision stories???   I should check out the Improvement Era and see if there is something there...(my parernts could not afford church mags..)...anyway...shoot me.  Should have known.

It's a complete cop out for anyone to suggest that members should have a) guessed that there may have been multiple differing accounts of the first vision and b) thought to go searching for those accounts by rifling through old Ensigns/Improvement Eras in their grandmother's basement.  And, we still haven't been able to figure out when the text of the 1832 account was published by the Church.

Hiding it was the act of cutting it out of the journal and keeping it in a safe rather than publishing it.

Being honest and transparent would have meant putting it in the curriculum and speaking to it in general conference.  Their failure to do this is what is, in my opinion, causing problems within the church.

[Tacenda]

28 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

The thing is ...as for me anyway...I can just see myself , a fourteen year old in 1970...wondering ...hey, I wonder if there is some more vision stories???   I should check out the Improvement Era and see if there is something there...(my parernts could not afford church mags..)...anyway...shoot me.  Should have known.

For sure! And why is it only in the New Era/Improvement Era and not in the Ensign? Why is polygamy only being taught in Seminary now and not Gospel Doctrine? Is it because youth really don't care for the most part since to them it was so long ago and they probably believe it was to take care of the widows. And in 1970, I was only 9 years old and I don't recall any mags being in my home either. It could have been there. 

 

[stemelbow]

26 minutes ago, rockpond said:

It's a complete cop out for anyone to suggest that members should have a) guessed that there may have been multiple differing accounts of the first vision and b) thought to go searching for those accounts by rifling through old Ensigns/Improvement Eras in their grandmother's basement.  And, we still haven't been able to figure out when the text of the 1832 account was published by the Church.

Hiding it was the act of cutting it out of the journal and keeping it in a safe rather than publishing it.

Being honest and transparent would have meant putting it in the curriculum and speaking to it in general conference.  Their failure to do this is what is, in my opinion, causing problems within the church.

Yep.  This.

[Tacenda]

56 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I have numbered your comments to allow me to easily respond.  I hope that's okay.  It was a long post with a lot of questions/points to respond to.

1.  I tend to believe that the vision was most likely both Father and Son.  But given Joseph's differing accounts, I'm not confident.  It seems for whatever reason, it may not have been totally clear in his memory.

2.  You seem to be an outlier among people I know.

3.  &  4.  I disagree that "everybody" has a subscription to the Ensign. But, my family did.  However, as a teenager, I was reading the New Era, not the Ensign.

5.  It would be accurate to say that Joseph's earliest written accounts differ.

6.  That's a very broad question.  You'll have to clarify but I am not really interested in departing too far from the topic of the thread.

7.  This speaks to the question I have asked multiple times on the board -- When did the church first publish the text of the 1832 account.  The articles you cited don't have it.  I know it is now available on LDS.org and the gospel library app but I believe that's a relatively new addition.

8.  I disagree that there is insufficient time.  3 hours every Sunday, seminary, institute, general conference... there is plenty of time.

9.  The evidence of "hiding" regarding the 1832 first vision account is that it was removed from church archives and placed in Joseph Fielding Smith's safe rather than being published and heralded as the first written account of our founding prophet's theophany.

10. I think many members don't know (or didn't know) and would not have even known what to look for.  I agree, that doesn't mean that the Church is hiding anything.  But, since the Brethren haven't really publicly spoken about the multiple first vision accounts until very recently, they can't be surprised when members discover the information from sources outside of the church and are upset by it.

What always gets me is why would JFS hide the account. Was he questioning the validity of the FV account? Why do the leaders hide anything if they believe the truth claims of the church. If they truly believed it, they would open the door wide open.

[Jeanne]

7 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

For sure! And why is it only in the New Era/Improvement Era and not in the Ensign? Why is polygamy only being taught in Seminary now and not Gospel Doctrine? Is it because youth really don't care for the most part since to them it was so long ago and they probably believe it was to take care of the widows. And in 1970, I was only 9 years old and I don't recall any mags being in my home either. It could have been there. 

 

I hear you.  The thing is...this "meat stuff"...I was looking for in Seminary...I didn't get any ot that...more discussion on the same old...same old.
 

[ksfisher]

12 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

For sure! And why is it only in the New Era/Improvement Era and not in the Ensign?

 

Because the Ensign didn't exist then.  The equivalent magazine was called the Improvement Era.

[rockpond]

5 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

For sure! And why is it only in the New Era/Improvement Era and not in the Ensign?

The Improvement Era was today's equivalent of the Ensign.  The following quote is from the Wikipedia entry for "Improvement Era"

"The Improvement Era was first published in 1897 as a replacement to the unofficial magazine, The Contributor. Over the years, it was the official publishing organ for a variety of organizations within the LDS Church, including the Seventies, the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association, priesthood quorums, church schools, the Church Music Committee, and the Home Teaching Committee. In the July 1960 issue, an insert targeted toward the teenagers of the church was included. Entitled "The Era of Youth," it continued to be included in the Improvement Era until 1970, when it became the basis for the New Era.

With the implementation of the Priesthood Correlation Program in 1970, the Improvement Era ceased publication and was replaced by the New Era and the Ensign."

Apparently the Allen article cited by Ballard was published prior to the 1970 change noted immediately above.

8 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Why is polygamy only being taught in Seminary now and not Gospel Doctrine?

I think it's because, as Ballard stated in Feb 2016, they feel a need to "inoculate" the youth.  It's tough to inoculate the parents because you have to "undo" all of the teaching they've received over many decades.

[Jeanne]

7 minutes ago, rockpond said:

The Improvement Era was today's equivalent of the Ensign.  The following quote is from the Wikipedia entry for "Improvement Era"

"The Improvement Era was first published in 1897 as a replacement to the unofficial magazine, The Contributor. Over the years, it was the official publishing organ for a variety of organizations within the LDS Church, including the Seventies, the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association, priesthood quorums, church schools, the Church Music Committee, and the Home Teaching Committee. In the July 1960 issue, an insert targeted toward the teenagers of the church was included. Entitled "The Era of Youth," it continued to be included in the Improvement Era until 1970, when it became the basis for the New Era.

With the implementation of the Priesthood Correlation Program in 1970, the Improvement Era ceased publication and was replaced by the New Era and the Ensign."

Apparently the Allen article cited by Ballard was published prior to the 1970 change noted immediately above.

I think it's because, as Ballard stated in Feb 2016, they feel a need to "inoculate" the youth.  It's tough to inoculate the parents because you have to "undo" all of the teaching they've received over many decades.

It is hard to honor your parents when they teach you the only thing you know...and to find differently puts an unnecessary wall between generations of mormons.  How easy it could have been of the truth had been taught...the essays suck...e for effort..but the essays suck not for what was taught, but for what was not.  Right now I am tending to an elderly father...who hates me because I brought out for the Ensign...the rock/hat.  He will never forgive me for that...and he deep down does not care to understand.  I love him...in old age he is often sweet at this point...but because of what the church did not teach HIM...he prefers to think I am a liar.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Jeanne

[ALarson]

1 hour ago, rockpond said:

Where and when was the text of the 1832 account first published by the church? 

Here is what is stated on lds.org ( https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng )

Quote

Joseph Smith published two accounts of the First Vision during his lifetime. The first of these, known today as Joseph Smith—History, was canonized in the Pearl of Great Price and thus became the best known account. The two unpublished accounts, recorded in Joseph Smith’s earliest autobiography and a later journal, were generally forgotten until historians working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rediscovered and published them in the 1960s. Since that time, these documents have been discussed repeatedly in Church magazines, in works printed by Church-owned and Church-affiliated presses, and by Latter-day Saint scholars in other venues.1

So, where were these accounts "published in the 1960s"?

Does anyone know?

 

Here is the footnote for sources "since that time":

Quote

1. See, for example, James B. Allen, “Eight Contemporary Accounts of the First Vision—What Do We Learn from Them?” Improvement Era, 73, (1970): 4-13; Richard L. Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Testimony of the First Vision,” Ensign, Apr. 1996, 10-21; Milton V. Backman, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: The First Vision in Its Historical Context (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971; 2d ed., 1980); Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012).

 

Edited November 30, 2017 by ALarson

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Well that's kind the issue.  When was it published?  

Depends on what you mean by "it"? If you mean the existence of there being multiple accounts of the First Vision, then as Elder Ballard pointed out in the discussion at least going back to 1970. Additional articles about multiple accounts were published in the 80's, 90's, and beyond. 

If by "it" you mean some particular account, then I guess it depends on which one you are referring to. 

[Jeanne]

2 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Depends on what you mean by "it"? If you mean the existence of there being multiple accounts of the First Vision, then as Elder Ballard pointed out in the discussion at least going back to 1970. Additional articles about multiple accounts were published in the 80's, 90's, and beyond. 

If by "it" you mean some particular account, then I guess it depends on which one you are referring to. 

This is such a non answer...gees..

[ALarson]

10 minutes ago, Amulek said:

 If by "it" you mean some particular account, then I guess it depends on which one you are referring to. 

It states this on lds.org:

Quote

Joseph Smith published two accounts of the First Vision during his lifetime. The first of these, known today as Joseph Smith—History, was canonized in the Pearl of Great Price and thus became the best known account.  The two unpublished accounts, recorded in Joseph Smith’s earliest autobiography and a later journal, were generally forgotten until historians working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rediscovered and published them in the 1960s.

Where were those previously "two unpublished accounts" then published "in the 1960s" by the church as stated above?

Edited November 30, 2017 by ALarson

[rockpond]

31 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

It is hard to honor your parents when they teach you the only thing you know...and to find differently puts an unnecessary wall between generations of mormons.  How easy it could have been of the truth had been taught...the essays suck...e for effort..but the essays suck not for what was taught, but for what was not.  Right now I am tending to an elderly father...who hates me because I brought out for the Ensign...the rock/hat.  He will never forgive me for that...and he deep down does not care to understand.  I love him...in old age he is often sweet at this point...but because of what the church did not teach HIM...he prefers to think I am a liar.

Yes - I am seeing a lot of issues between parents and children (usually adult children) regarding this issue.

[kiwi57]

14 hours ago, Exiled said:

So, is 15 years that much better in your mind?

Why assume that it is somehow bad?

[Exiled]

1 minute ago, kiwi57 said:

Why assume that it is somehow bad?

It was a huge revelation supposedly, to see deity (whether one or two beings).  One would think Joseph Smith told his family.  So, one would expect that Joseph Smith's family would have said something about it in their recollections of that time period.  Joseph Smith did claim intense persecution after relating the story to a local preacher.  However, there is nothing from the family.  One would also expect that it should have made the local papers like the other similar visionary experiences others had.  However, nothing again.  Why then did he wait so long to tell this miraculous story?

Sure, this doesn't mean that it did not happen.  I am not aware, however, of someone getting more detailed in their descriptions of events the more time passes.  Even so, Joseph Smith seemed to be unique.  So, maybe ordinary rules didn't apply to him making it is still possible that he had such an experience.  Just not that probable as far as the 1838 account goes.  Maybe he did have some experience where he thought he saw what was described in the 1832 account?  However, he probably did not tell any one and the other anachronistic events in the 1838 account simply did not happen and he exaggerated his story for religious effect, kind of like the Idaho biker conversion story that got a lot of play a few months ago.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Jeanne said:

It is hard to honor your parents when they teach you the only thing you know...and to find differently puts an unnecessary wall between generations of mormons.  How easy it could have been of the truth had been taught...the essays suck...e for effort..but the essays suck not for what was taught, but for what was not.  Right now I am tending to an elderly father...who hates me because I brought out for the Ensign...the rock/hat.  He will never forgive me for that...and he deep down does not care to understand.  I love him...in old age he is often sweet at this point...but because of what the church did not teach HIM...he prefers to think I am a liar.

A few years ago I expressed that when I was in a Primary class with married co-teachers, I was helping a special needs young man, and the class was reading about the prophets or kings marrying all the wives or had concubines in the bible. I remember this group of kids' expressions and some spoke up as to how gross that was. The teachers mentioned something about polygamy starting with Brigham Young to take care of the widows. I wanted to scream because in my head I knew it started with Joseph Smith. And then I came on this board and expressed what had happened and I remember comments back to me that I should have cleared that up and mentioned JS's polygamy, I thought there was no way that class or those teachers would have believed me. They might have even reacted like your dad and really thought I was passing anti info or something. That's why I keep my mouth shut until the church really opens up about it in church settings especially when teaching section 132 in the D&C. 

Edited November 30, 2017 by Tacenda

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, rockpond said:

I have numbered your comments to allow me to easily respond.  I hope that's okay.  It was a long post with a lot of questions/points to respond to.

1.  I tend to believe that the vision was most likely both Father and Son.  But given Joseph's differing accounts, I'm not confident.  It seems for whatever reason, it may not have been totally clear in his memory.

Earlier, you said you distrust the Brethren because they didn't give you a 'true and accurate narrative' about the church's founding. But it seems as though you believe that narrative to be true. So what's the big deal? 

 

Quote

2.  You seem to be an outlier among people I know.

Well, there were about 20 other people in my class, so I know I'm not the only one. 

 

Quote

3.  &  4.  I disagree that "everybody" has a subscription to the Ensign. But, my family did.  However, as a teenager, I was reading the New Era, not the Ensign.

Well, I didn't mean that it was literally the case that every member of the church had a subscription. But I think you understood that from the rest of my comments. 

 

Quote

5.  It would be accurate to say that Joseph's earliest written accounts differ.

If by "differ" you mean, 'are not identical to each other,' then yeah - that's obviously the case. But if by "differ" you mean, 'are in disagreement with each other,' then no - I don't think that would be a more accurate statement. 

 

Quote

6.  That's a very broad question.  You'll have to clarify but I am not really interested in departing too far from the topic of the thread.

No need. 

 

Quote

7.  This speaks to the question I have asked multiple times on the board -- When did the church first publish the text of the 1832 account.  The articles you cited don't have it.  I know it is now available on LDS.org and the gospel library app but I believe that's a relatively new addition.

I apologize. I thought you were just talking about the existence of multiple accounts in general, not this specific account in particular. I'm not certain when that account was first published. If I have time, I'll try to see what I can find though. 

 

Quote

8.  I disagree that there is insufficient time.  3 hours every Sunday, seminary, institute, general conference... there is plenty of time.

Like I said before, I think a church history or institute class is pretty much the only venue where you could spend the time necessary to adequately discuss the multiple first vision accounts. It's way too much content to cover in under an hour. 

 

Quote

9.  The evidence of "hiding" regarding the 1832 first vision account is that it was removed from church archives and placed in Joseph Fielding Smith's safe rather than being published and heralded as the first written account of our founding prophet's theophany.

Joseph Fielding Smith was a good guy. I'm not going to impugn him for his motives (if there were any affirmative motives to begin with) for doing what he did with property in his control. 

 

Quote

10. I think many members don't know (or didn't know) and would not have even known what to look for.  I agree, that doesn't mean that the Church is hiding anything.  But, since the Brethren haven't really publicly spoken about the multiple first vision accounts until very recently, they can't be surprised when members discover the information from sources outside of the church and are upset by it.

I'm not surprised when I learn that people are upset about discovering information from outside sources. I guess I just got over being bothered by that thing a long time ago. 

[Amulek]

50 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Quote

Joseph Smith published two accounts of the First Vision during his lifetime. The first of these, known today as Joseph Smith—History, was canonized in the Pearl of Great Price and thus became the best known account.  The two unpublished accounts, recorded in Joseph Smith’s earliest autobiography and a later journal, were generally forgotten until historians working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rediscovered and published them in the 1960s.

Where were those previously "two unpublished accounts" then published "in the 1960s" by the church as stated above?

Unsure. If I have some time, I'll see if I can find out though.

 

[Tacenda]

Just curious, do any of you out there speak up in class when a teacher gives wrong info about say polygamy, have you made mention how JS lived it? Have any of you taught about JS's polygamy to anyone that didn't know about it in your families? Have any of you brought up the church essays? I don't want to derail, if I'm doing that. But just wanted to see if any of you that are stalwart in their belief in the church have brought it up in a class setting or amongst family/friends when they act as if they are unaware. Also, those that are on the fringe of belief or no belief at all I would love to know how they went about it. And what kind of reactions occurred. Maybe Calm could enable my question to be on another thread and maybe even a poll. She offered to help me start a topic on something since I'm on "limited". But if it can be done on this thread, minus the poll, then good enough. Calm's super busy so I don't want her worrying about it.