1838 Vision Account, Personages'

[Duncan]

In Joseph Smith's 1838 account of the 1st Vision he doesn't identify God the Father and Jesus Christ , he just says "The Personages" or the Light, and the fact that one is clearly the father of the other one but it doesn't ever say who the personages are. Does anyone have thoughts as to why Joseph didn't identify who they were?

[sunstoned]

In the 1832 account, which is the earliest and most personal account as it is written in Joseph Smiths own hand writing, that was only one personage who appeared to him.  JS identifies this personage as the lord.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/articles/primary-accounts-of-first-vision

The three known accounts are inconsistent, but do show an evolution of thought.

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by sunstoned

[InCognitus]

I think Joseph was just giving the events as they transpired, not unlike other accounts given in scripture where the Father introduces the Son:

The baptism of Jesus:

"And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:   And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  (Matthew 3:16–17)

The mount of transfiguration:

"While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."  (Matthew 17:5)

Jesus appearing to the people in the Book of Mormon:

"And behold, the third time they did understand the voice which they heard; and it said unto them:  Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him." (3 Nephi 11:6–7)

The 1838 account of the first vision:

"One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"  (Joseph Smith—History 1:17)

I'm pretty sure that Joseph didn't think it needed any further explanation in that context.

Edited February 2, 2020 by InCognitus

[InCognitus]

14 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

The three known accounts are inconsistent, but do show an evolution of thought.

 They are neither inconsistent nor evolutionary with respect to content, but demonstrate what any normal person would do in reciting an event that transpired earlier in their life as influenced by events going on in their present day life (at the time of the telling), and for what would be appropriate to say to different audiences.  

This podcast explains some of it quite well:   The First Vision: A Joseph Smith Papers Podcast,  specifically Episode 5:  "It Caused Me Great Reflection":

Quote

Description

This episode explores the immediate aftermath of the First Vision and Joseph Smith’s recounting of the event throughout his life. How did the events and developments of Joseph Smith’s life influence the way that he told others about his vision? Learn the circumstances in which each of the accounts of the First Vision was recorded.

Guests: Steven Harper, Robin Jensen, Matthew Godfrey, Brent Rogers, Christopher Jones

 

[sunstoned]

44 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

 They are neither inconsistent nor evolutionary with respect to content, but demonstrate what any normal person would do in reciting an event that transpired earlier in their life as influenced by events going on in their present day life (at the time of the telling), and for what would be appropriate to say to different audiences.  

This podcast explains some of it quite well:   The First Vision: A Joseph Smith Papers Podcast,  specifically Episode 5:  "It Caused Me Great Reflection":

 

 

I see your podcast, and raise you two

https://radiofreemormon.org/2019/12/radio-free-mormon-103-arguing-against-the-evidence/

https://radiofreemormon.org/2019/06/radio-free-mormon-069-dcp-artful-dodger/

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

 

I see your podcast, and raise you two

https://radiofreemormon.org/2019/12/radio-free-mormon-103-arguing-against-the-evidence/

https://radiofreemormon.org/2019/06/radio-free-mormon-069-dcp-artful-dodger/

How are these relevant to what I posted?

Edit:  I listened to the first podcast, and his whole argument is based on the flawed premise that only mentioning one being in the 1832 account is contradictory to mentioning two beings in the second account (it's not), and implying that Joseph Fielding Smith was hiding evidence by talking about the two personages in a 1960 article.  Omission of details is not a contradiction.  Any lawyer would say the same.   Furthermore, the podcasts you provided do nothing to dispute or refute the podcasts I provided. 

Edited February 2, 2020 by InCognitus

[Calm]

I don’t have Givens’ new book, so can’t reference that and must use a review. Apparently Givens’ does a good job placing the various accounts in the context of what was happening to Joseph and therefore why he might have told the versions that way he had:

Quote

He points out that the first mention of the First Vision is in D&C 20, given on April 10, 1830. Joseph Smith’s first autobiographical account was in 1832. It was brief, with few details, “consistent with Smith’s apparent view that his encounter with the Lord in particular was an entirely personal episode, not for general consumption, and not directly related to his calling as the First Elder in the church.” It wasn’t until 1835 that he seemed to be comfortable sharing it with others. At this time, more detail was added, which has made some skeptical, specifically about there being two distinct beings that visited him. Givens says it is “reasonable to see that detail as secondary from Smith’s perspective.” [23]

The addition of further details in 1838 about the confusion and strife between religious sects and “their creeds [being] an abomination” likely came about due to Joseph’s greater willingness to share them after clergy having been involved in mob attacks. Finally, in 1842, “he decided that nothing less than the full extent of his experience that morning in upstate New York would suffice to convey the foundations of that fullness. …And so the personal became public, and biography took a crucial step toward canonization.” [24]

https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2019/12/19/book-review-the-pearl-of-greatest-price-mormonisms-most-controversial-scripture

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I see your podcast, and raise you two

https://radiofreemormon.org/2019/12/radio-free-mormon-103-arguing-against-the-evidence/

https://radiofreemormon.org/2019/06/radio-free-mormon-069-dcp-artful-dodger/

Let's see.

Five professional historians with, amongst them, a PhD in early American history from Lehigh University, a PhD in history from the University of Utah, a PhD in American and public history from Washington State University, a PhD in 19th-century American history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and a PhD in history from the College of William and Mary.

Versus a criminal attorney with an axe to grind. It's a tough call ...

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

Apparently Givens’ does a good job placing the various accounts in the context of what was happening to Joseph and therefore why he might have told the versions that way he had.

Which is exactly the sort of thing that professionally trained historians a) are familiar with and b) seriously analyse.

Four years ago, when I was still at the university and editing a history journal, I made the following post, pieced together from two other earlier posts:

Retellings are always tailored to fit a specific audience and a unique narrative context. As a consequence, when multiple accounts of an event exist, as is not infrequently the case, this is a bonus for the historian because such accounts tend to be mutually complementary and help in the construction of a fuller retelling. And it's an added bonus when the accounts don't contain any genuine contradictions or mutually exclusive details because very often they do, though thankfully usually only of the minor kind -- incorrect names and/or discrepancies in age, date, or other numbers, as a few examples.

Over the past decade, much of my research has involved the personal writings of Catholic priests/missionaries serving in the East/Pacific in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the hallmarks of this research has been work with multiple accounts of events. In preparation for the annual arrival of European ships, it was not at all unusual for a single Jesuit priest to compose separate letters or reports for the Society's headquarters in Rome, for the provincial superior in India, and for one or more of his fellow missionaries elsewhere in the East and/or in Europe. These texts would provide a summary of events from the past year, and unsurprisingly they tend to differ strongly in content and degree of detail -- despite in some cases being composed over the course of a single day -- simply because each retelling served a different purpose.

Details included in one letter may not appear at all in another. In other cases, what earns a passing mention in one report forms the central focus in a different report. Retellings of conversations with, for example, local chiefs often differ from one text to the next, not because the priest made up all these accounts but because choosing which parts of a (sometimes long) interaction to report -- and who exactly was involved -- depended on audience and context. Reports to superiors tend to be more cautious and less detailed in some cases than reports to peers. I can think of a few cases where comparing the former with the latter clearly shows how carefully missionaries picked and chose details to give a completely honest report whilst still holding back the more complete picture.

This is what real history looks like, and Joseph's narratives fit perfectly into the pattern. If there is anything even remotely noteworthy about the existence of or the content in the various accounts of the First Vision, it is how consistent and lacking in contradictions they are.

*****

I maintain that there is nothing uniquely or tellingly dissonant about the various First Vision accounts. Consider the following hypothetical (inspired by my own research):

• In 1562 a Jesuit missionary reports that upon having visited a certain island he met the ruler of the island in a palace set on 18 poles; the ruler told him that he was happy to have the priest in his island.
• In 1565 the missionary reports that upon having visited the island he met first one and then another ruler of the island in a palace set on 18 poles; a number of local chiefs were also present during this audience.
• In 1568 the missionary reports that upon having visited the island he met the queen and king of the island in a palace set on 18 poles; the king told him that he hadn't been particularly impressed with the Muslim traders who had been visiting his island.
• In 1572 the missionary reports that upon having visited the island he met the rulers of the island in a palace set on 18 poles; the rulers told him that they hadn't been particularly impressed with the Muslim traders who had been visiting their island.

If I were to present the above in a seminar and express concern over the dissonance caused thereby, I would be met with quizzical, probably embarrassed looks. And yet these hypothetical accounts exactly parallel the supposedly difficult-to-reconcile differences in the First Vision accounts.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

In preparation for the annual arrival of European ships, it was not at all unusual for a single Jesuit priest to compose separate letters or reports for the Society's headquarters in Rome, for the provincial superior in India, and for one or more of his fellow missionaries elsewhere in the East and/or in Europe. These texts would provide a summary of events from the past year, and unsurprisingly they tend to differ strongly in content and degree of detail -- despite in some cases being composed over the course of a single day -- simply because each retelling served a different purpose.

 

It would be interesting for you to write an Interpreter or FM article posting one example of multiple same day texts with variations, in part just to have an easy online resource to point to for these FV discussions, but also because it is an interesting human dynamic to discuss in and of itself. 

[Jeanne]

5 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Let's see.

Five professional historians with, amongst them, a PhD in early American history from Lehigh University, a PhD in history from the University of Utah, a PhD in American and public history from Washington State University, a PhD in 19th-century American history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and a PhD in history from the College of William and Mary.

Versus a criminal attorney with an axe to grind. It's a tough call ...

Did you at least listen to the podcasts?

[Kevin Christensen]

Regarding the account of personages in Joseph's 1820 vision,  James Allen's Improvement Era article in 1970 suggested that in the 1832 ms, the lines go

"and the <Lord> opened the heavens to me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee,..." speaks of coming "in the cloud <clothed> in the glory of my Father..."   Allen suggested that the instances of Lord here are used for different beings.  The first <Lord> refers to the Father opening the heavens, and the second to the resurrected Jesus.   I think it notable too that in the ms the <Lord> is an insert above the line, where there was clearly a word missing.  If the insert had been God or Father, we'd have no controversy.  Who made the insert?  And given that the two beings were said to exactly resemble one another, I also think that Lord is an apt title for either.  The actions of opening the heavens and speaking are separate.  So why not admit separate beings?   And there is more.

Matthew Brown in an important 2006  FAIR Conference presentation and in his excellent book A Pillar of Light, pointed to the implications of line near the start of the 1832 history. 

"A History of the life of Joseph Smith Jr. an account of his marvilous experience and all the mighty acts which he doeth in the name of Jesus Ch[r]ist the son of the living God of whom he beareth record... <firstly> he receiving the testimony from on high..."

Brown asks that we look through further to figure out what it means

As a preliminary, in 2006 Brown said this:

Quote

A preliminary survey of the literature on my part turned up several First Vision story elements that were known in non-LDS circles before JS 1832 was created. They did not make it into this particular account, but they were included by Joseph Smith in JS 1838, signifying that they were integral parts of the story. This is enough to establish the fact that JS 1832 must not be considered as a full rendition of the First Vision event. Critics of Joseph Smith, therefore, would be wise to pause before making the accusation that any story elements that are not in this document, but which show up in later recitals, must represent a revision.

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2006/revised-or-unaltered-joseph-smiths-foundational-stories

That the 1832 account is not as polished should not lead us to overlook the fact that it is complex:

Quote

But look more closely at this slide. In the area where the actual theophany takes place you will notice that Joseph Smith has incorporated three very relevant Bible stories into the telling of his tale; three stories that have to do with the appearance of heavenly beings. The first is the story of the angels who visited the shepherds and amidst a heavenly light announced the coming of the Christ. The second has to do with the appearance of the Savior to the apostle Paul when the heavenly light shown around him. And the third is about the apostle Stephen seeing both the Father and the Son. But before we move on to the next slide I will remind you what the Prophet said about the rejection he experienced when he first announced his vision. He said, ‘I felt like the apostle Paul because they wouldn’t believe his vision of Deity either.’ Now here we see Joseph utilizing Paul’s story to tell his own. Joseph used more of this story than any of the others and there is probably an important insight to be gained here. When Joseph Smith incorporates Acts 26 as a framework the parallels are so exacting that when Paul speaks in his text, Joseph speaks in his text; when Jesus addresses Paul in the Bible passage, Jesus addresses Joseph in JS 1832. And then the pattern reverts to Paul speaking and Joseph speaking.

There is another scriptural framework to be found in JS 1832, but it is on the large scale—it overarches the entire text. It appears that Joseph Smith found a close parallel to his experience in the words of Psalm 31. The remarkable closeness of themes and verbiage between the Psalm and the Prophet’s historical narrative demonstrate a close connection between the two texts. Psalm 31 is a deeply personal passage of scripture and this may be the reason why it was utilized. This intimate sense is mirrored in JS 1832. And it should be noted that several themes of Psalm 31 seem to have ended up in the Prophet’s 1838 recital of the First Vision also.

And this leads to this notable observation from Brown that, like Allen's suggestion, tends to be ignored by the knee-jerk line of critics:

Quote

This brings us to the most frequent anti-Mormon criticism about JS 1832. God the Father is obviously not mentioned as making an appearance to Joseph Smith in this First Vision account. I would like to suggest, however, that all this time we as Latter-day Saints have not recognized that God the Father’s appearance is, in fact, referred to right in this document. This has occurred, I believe, because we have been looking in the wrong place.

In the introductory remarks of JS 1832 Joseph Smith outlined precisely how he was about to proceed in the narration of his history. He mentioned that the very first incident associated with his “marvelous experience” in the Restoration was that he received “the testimony from on high.” Because of the formatting of the introductory paragraph and the structure of the text which follows it, it can be concluded with a marked degree of certainty that this testimony was connected with the First Vision. The question to ask, then, is, What was the “testimony from on high” that Joseph Smith received during the First Vision? This question is easily answered by referring to another First Vision recital given by the Prophet in November 1835. There he states that one of the two personages who appeared unto him testified that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. In JS 1838 (which is the First Vision narrative now published in the Pearl of Great Price) we learn that one of the personages testified to Joseph using the following words, “This is my beloved Son.” We may comfortably conclude from this documentary evidence that the “testimony from on high” of JS 1832 is equivalent to the phrase spoken by God the Father in JS 1838. Therefore, we may safely say that when Joseph Smith wrote the 1832 account of the First Vision the appearance of God the Father was definitely in his mind—because he obliquely refers to it. It seems that he did not make an explicit mention of this part of the story simply because he had chosen to use the apostle Paul’s experience as the main framework for that portion of his narrative—and Paul only saw Jesus Christ.

I like Brown's observation, but I think Allen's suggestion is still valid.  So I am not impressed by those claim a significant and telling contradiction in the 1832 account, but who never so much as mention the existence of these important arguments.

And just to keep things stirred up, we also have Tim Barker's important essay showing that some people remembered hearing the vision before 1832.

http://lds-studies.blogspot.com/2011/07/first-vision-in-formative-years-of.html

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[sunstoned]

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Let's see.

Five professional historians with, amongst them, a PhD in early American history from Lehigh University, a PhD in history from the University of Utah, a PhD in American and public history from Washington State University, a PhD in 19th-century American history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and a PhD in history from the College of William and Mary.

Versus a criminal attorney with an axe to grind. It's a tough call ...

Read the three accounts, and then honestly tell that are not vastly different.  You don't need a phd for that.  It is clear.

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

Read the three accounts, and then honestly tell that are not vastly different.  You don't need a phd for that.  It is clear.

Done.

[Hamba Tuhan]

4 hours ago, Jeanne said:

Did you at least listen to the podcasts?

Nope, none of the three.

As I've mentioned multiple times on this forum before, I don't do podcasts for two main reasons:

1. Listening and reading take place in different parts of our brains and -- whether this is learnt, innate, or a combination of the two -- engage different mental capacities. Listening to a conversation is more emotive. Reading is far more likely to engage our critical faculties. I expect footnotes when I read. I expect references back to original sources that I can read for my own understanding. None of this is possible in a podcast. Research shows that reading almost always involves going back and rereading phrases or whole sentences. The soothing tones of a podcast, in contrast, just wash over the listener in an endless linear stream. (I personally don't think it's a coincidence that the podcast has emerged as the preferred medium of many eminent Church critics. I also don't find it surprising that the Church is beginning to respond by using the same medium.)
2. I can read many times faster than I can listen.

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

It would be interesting for you to write an Interpreter or FM article posting one example of multiple same day texts with variations, in part just to have an easy online resource to point to for these FV discussions, but also because it is an interesting human dynamic to discuss in and of itself. 

Thanks. I will consider doing this ... if a window of opportunity opens up. (It would require going back through c. 4,000 pages of primary source materials. This is an election year for us, and I sense that things are about to get even crazier than usual.)

Edited February 2, 2020 by Hamba Tuhan

[Robert F. Smith]

11 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Let's see.

Five professional historians with, amongst them, a PhD in early American history from Lehigh University, a PhD in history from the University of Utah, a PhD in American and public history from Washington State University, a PhD in 19th-century American history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and a PhD in history from the College of William and Mary.

Versus a criminal attorney with an axe to grind. It's a tough call ...

Attorneys are trained to be advocates, not historians, which makes them vulnerable to tunnel-vision.  They tend to overlook nuances as well as to ignore contradictory paradigms.  For example, even though two descriptions of Paul's Vision in Acts are contradictory, that does not mean he had no vision on Damascus Road.  Historians make no such claim.  The Gospels in the NT are clearly contradictory (without even including the Gospel of Thomas and III Nephi).  Does that mean they are false?  Scholars realize full well that biographies of a particular individual can contradict one another without being self-destructive.  The biographers do the best they can to capture the truth about the man they knew.  The same was true for Plato and Xenephon in their separate comments about their teacher Socrates.

Imagine that you are once again 14 years old, and that you had a powerful experience.  How would you describe it years later?  On different occasions.  I can barely recall some things that happened to me at that age.

[Duncan]

Do you think when Joseph wrote his 1838 he wrote with the understanding that his readers would know who the Personages were? I mean he talks before about God the Father and Jesus visiting but I wonder what his assumptions were when he wrote it

[blueglass]

4 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Regarding the account of personages in Joseph's 1820 vision,  James Allen's Improvement Era article in 1970 suggested that in the 1832 ms, the lines go

"and the <Lord> opened the heavens to me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee,..." speaks of coming "in the cloud <clothed> in the glory of my Father..."   Allen suggested that the instances of Lord here are used for different beings.  The first <Lord> refers to the Father opening the heavens, and the second to the resurrected Jesus.   I think it notable too that in the ms the <Lord> is an insert above the line, where there was clearly a word missing.  If the insert had been God or Father, we'd have no controversy.  Who made the insert?  And given that the two beings were said to exactly resemble one another, I also think that Lord is an apt title for either.  The actions of opening the heavens and speaking are separate.  So why not admit separate beings?   And there is more.

It's really not necessary to use Allen's 1970 improvement article based on Cheesman's 1832 transcription when we have the direct scans.  https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/3

Lord is an insert above the line, but no there is not clearly a word missing.  There is no room for a missing word.  Joseph made the first Lord insert and second Lord are in the same hand writing. The hand writing change insert to "in the 16th year of my age " is Frederik G Williams, but it only includes this phrase and does not continue.   I disagree with Brown that "the fact that JS 1832 must not be considered as a full rendition of the First Vision event" when it includes more words of Christ.  This is precious red letter words of Christ in Joseph's own hand writing closer to the event which transpired.  Compare for yourself.

1832, H1, 149 words of Christ

“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 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 thir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which hath been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Apostles behold and lo I come quickly as it is written of me in the cloud clothed in the glory of my Father.”

1838, 65 words of Christ

“[You] must join none of them, for they [are] all wrong; all their creeds [are] an abomination in [my] sight; those professors [are] all corrupt;  they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.  [You] must join none of them.”

Edited February 2, 2020 by blueglass

[Hamba Tuhan]

26 minutes ago, Duncan said:

Do you think when Joseph wrote his 1838 he wrote with the understanding that his readers would know who the Personages were?

Yes. The Father's introduction of the Son echoes the Bible's account of words spoken at Jesus's baptism and would have resonated with his assumed audience.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Hamba Tuhan

[InCognitus]

10 minutes ago, blueglass said:

I disagree with Brown that "the fact that JS 1832 must not be considered as a full rendition of the First Vision event" when it includes more words of Christ.

It would be hard to conclude that any one of the accounts include all the details and qualify as a "full rendition" of the First Vision event.  This is a natural thing to do in normal retelling of a true story.  The 1835 account says that Joseph also "saw many angels" in his first vision, a detail missing from the 1832 and 1838 and 1842 accounts, for example.

More accounts are always better.  I like that we have the Wentworth Letter account of the visit of the angel Moroni to Joseph, for example, because it includes additional details about things that Joseph was shown concerning the people in the Book of Mormon. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

23 minutes ago, blueglass said:

1838, 65 words of Christ

“[You] must join none of them, for they [are] all wrong; all their creeds [are] an abomination in [my] sight; those professors [are] all corrupt;  they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.  [You] must join none of them.”

With all due respect, the whole reason you had to add editorial amendments in brackets is because Joseph's 1838 account summarises what he claims that he was told. It is not an attempt to record the 'words of Christ'. The only quotation in the entire passage is the one taken from Isaiah.

[Hamba Tuhan]

4 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

More accounts are always better.

Spoken like a genuine historian!

[bdouglas]

deleted

Edited February 3, 2020 by bdouglas

[bdouglas]

9 hours ago, Jeanne said:

Did you at least listen to the podcasts?

The problem with RFM’s take on anything to do with Mormon history is that consiglieri is an attorney (criminal or personal injury?) not a historian and Bill Reel has a high school diploma. If you are looking for anti-Mormon polemic and propaganda, they are great. But really that is all you will get––polemic and propaganda.

Still, I don't deny that occasionally consiglieri has something interesting to say (not so with Bill Reel, who comes across as a very simplistic and literalistic thinker), but it is marred by his ex-Mormon bitterness.

Edited February 3, 2020 by bdouglas