March 2020 – Pearl of Great Price Central

March 31, 2020September 17, 2020

Are the Christian Creeds Really an Abomination?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #18

One of the more dramatic divine pronouncements delivered to Joseph Smith during his First Vision concerns the creeds being propounded by Christian leaders and theologians of his day. Upon asking the two glorious personages—God the Father and Jesus Christ—which of the Christian denominations he should join, Joseph recorded the following answer in his 1838–39 account of the vision:

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “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.” (Joseph Smith–History 1:19)

This is, by any standard, a direct and harsh reply. It is also consistent with the accounts left by Joseph before and after this one. In his 1832 account of the vision, Joseph reported that the Lord told him, “Behold, the world lieth in sin at this time, and none doeth good, no, not one. They have turned aside from the gospel and keep not my commandments. They draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me.”¹ Later in 1842, in a statement that seems to have been carefully worded to lessen any offence to its intended public audience, Joseph paraphrased what he learned from the heavenly personages thus: “They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom.”²

In order to assess the intention behind the language of the 1838–39 account that spoke of the Christian creeds being an “abomination,” a number of considerations need to be kept in mind. The first is the historical setting of the composition of this account. As historian Steven Harper has noted, Joseph Smith composed his 1838 history at a time when he and other Latter-day Saints were experiencing bitter persecution. The troubles of the Kirtland apostasy of 1837 and mounting tensions that would lead to the outbreak of the Missouri War of 1838 undoubtedly influenced the defensive tone of this history.³ Little wonder that Joseph began his account refuting what he deemed “many reports which have been put in circulation by evil-disposed and designing persons, in relation to the rise and progress of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all of which have been designed by the authors thereof to militate against its character as a Church and its progress in the world” (Joseph Smith–History 1:1).

This context also explains why the theme of Joseph’s boyhood persecution as a consequence to him telling others about the First Vision is prominent in this narrative (Joseph Smith–History 1:21–26), an element that goes underplayed or omitted from his other accounts of the First Vision. Keeping in mind that the 1838 account has Joseph paraphrasing what the Lord told him, it therefore seems likely that the harsher tone of this account was deliberate on Joseph’s part. “In [Joseph] Smith’s 1839 present, persecution dominated his past,” writes Harper.

He had triumphed over mobs and militias, and now he made sense of his present position as the embattled president of a new church. The combination of Smith’s past and present consolidated a defensive, resolute memory in which reporting his first vision catalyzed his lifetime of persecution. . . . [The 1838–39 account of the First Vision] shapes [Latter-day Saints’] identity as a people persecuted from transcending creedal Christianity and accessing God directly.⁴

Beyond the setting and tone of the 1838 account is the consideration of what creeds specifically Joseph may have had in mind with this account. After all, over the many centuries of Christian history, hundreds of creeds have been issued by orthodox Christians of different theological traditions. Are there particularly problematic creeds that Joseph perhaps had in mind? Deriving from the Latin credo, meaning “I believe,” a creed, at its most basic definition, is “a statement of the shared beliefs of (an often religious) community in the form of a fixed formula summarizing core tenets.”⁵ Latter-day Saints, who affirm that as a result of the Great Apostasy many important points of the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ were distorted or lost, have traditionally been very suspicious of and even sometimes outrightly hostile towards the orthodox creeds of Christendom, viewing them as the product of a time when revelation was not guiding the formulations of perhaps sincere but still misguided churchmen.⁶

Sometimes it’s the content of the creed that riles Latter-day Saints, such as in the case with the Westminster Confession of 1647, which affirms: “There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible . . .”⁷ This formulation of the nature of God runs directly at odds with the Latter-day Saint belief in an embodied God who is knowable through revelation and certainly not immutable, without passions (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22–23; Moses 7:26–31). More often, however, it is what creeds represent than what they contain that makes Latter-day Saints uneasy. As Joseph Smith himself remarked: “I cannot believe in any of the creeds of the different denominations because they all have some things in them [that] I cannot subscribe to, though all of them have some truth. But I want to come up into the presence of God and learn all things; but the creeds set up stakes and say ‘hitherto shalt thou come, and no further’ — which I cannot subscribe to.”⁸ For the Prophet, creeds were an impediment to receiving new light and knowledge from God because they needlessly constricted believers into narrow boxes of dogma. As he said on another occasion: “[T]he most prominent point of difference in sentiment between the Latter-day Saints and sectarians [is] that the latter [are] all circumscribed by some peculiar creed, which deprived its members the privilege of believing anything not contained therein; whereas the Latter-day Saints have no creed, but are ready to believe all true principles that exist, as they are made manifest from time to time.”⁹

Title page of a 1647 printing of the Westminster Confession. Image via Wikipedia.

In addition to all of this, scholar John W. Welch has pointed out that the multitudinous creeds of Protestant Christianity that were written and circulated during the three centuries leading up to Joseph’s lifetime led to increased “protest and confusion” as believers atomized into increasingly niche subgroups.¹⁰ Whereas the creedal statements in the New Testament were personal statements of testimony, and the main creeds of the early Christian councils were institutional statements internally defining orthodoxy,¹¹ beginning in the Reformation,

Creeds now became statements of belief, formulated for the purpose of distinguishing and differentiating one religious group from another. Into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the number of creeds climbed and the verbosity and complexity of these confessions soared. While all of this positioning may have been understandably necessitated by the political and rational forces that surrounded the various Protestant denominations or sects, the result was precisely as Joseph’s experience depicts. Confusion, dissension, and self-serving manipulation characterized much of the religious fervor of his day, erupting in many cases (not only against the Mormons) in hostility, persecution, and violence.¹²

“By 1820,” Welch continues, “numerous creeds of various denominations had been brought into existence,” with no sign of slowing down.¹³ With their often highly polemical language and stridently contentious aims, the formulation of many of the creeds Joseph would have been reacting against coincided not only with the bloody wars of religion fought in Europe, but also with the “the tumultuous times of the First and Second Awakenings in the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries” in North America.¹⁴ It was precisely because of these creeds that Joseph grew up in a religious environment “of great confusion and bad feeling[s],” with “priest contending against priest, and convert against convert; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions” (Joseph Smith–History 1:6). Inasmuch as Jesus himself proclaimed that contention and disputation was of the devil (3 Nephi 11:29), there can be little doubt as to why Jesus would have expressed regret and dismay at the way creeds were being utilized by competing and intransigent ministers and professors of religion in Joseph’s day.

The stark language of the 1838 account of the First Vision which denounces the creeds as “abominations” forces readers to make a decision about the ultimate truthfulness of Joseph Smith’s visionary claims.¹⁵ At the same time, however, most Latter-day Saints, while concurring with the negative assessment of creedal Christianity in the Prophet’s account, are eager to approach this subject judiciously and with the same kind of fair-mindedness they ask of other Christians for their beliefs. Latter-day Saints should be careful not to misrepresent or misconstrue what the orthodox creeds actually say,¹⁶ much less use them as a bludgeon to attack sincere Christians of either Catholic or Protestant backgrounds. Although Joseph Smith was highly critical of the Christian creeds, he was also sensitive to the fact that they do contain many things that are true, which the Saints readily recognize and welcome into their own religious paradigms where appropriate.¹⁷

Footnotes

¹ History, circa Summer 1832, 3, spelling standardized.

² “Church History,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 (March 1, 1842): 707.

³ Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 13–21. See additionally Alexander L. Baugh, “Joseph Smith in Northern Missouri, 1838,” in Joseph Smith: The Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2010), 291–346.

⁴ Harper, First Vision, 18–19.

⁵ “Creed,” online at Wikipedia.org.

⁶ For representative examples of the traditional Latter-day Saint approach to the Great Apostasy, see B. H. Roberts, Outlines of Ecclesiastical History (Salt Lake City, UT: George Q. Cannon & Sons, 1893); James E. Talmage, The Great Apostasy (Salt Lake City, UT: The Deseret News, 1909). These older works, which are outdated in many regards on historical points, have been supplanted in popularity and utility more recently by Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2005); Scott R. Petersen, Where Have All the Prophets Gone? Revelation and Rebellion in the Old Testament and the Christian World (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2005); Tad R. Callister, The Inevitable Apostasy and the Promised Restoration (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2006). For a recent academic treatment on the concept of apostasy in the Latter-day Saint tradition, see Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014).

⁷ The Westminster Confession of Faith (II.I), in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (New York, NY: Harper, 1877), 3:606.

⁸ Discourse, 15 October 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards, [pp. 128–129], spelling standardized.

⁹ History, 1838–1856, volume D-1 [1 August 1842–1 July 1843], p. 1433, spelling standardized. See generally, Gary P. Gillum, “Creeds,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (MacMillan: New York, 1992), 1:343.

¹⁰ John W. Welch, “‘All Their Creeds Were an Abomination’:A Brief Look at Creeds as Part of the Apostasy,” in Prelude to the Restoration: From Apostasy to the Restored Church (Provo, UT and Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University and Deseret Book, 2004), 240.

¹¹ For a chart comparing the texts of seven main Post-Apostolic Creeds, see “The Post-Apostolic Creeds,” in John W. Welch and John F. Hall, eds., Charting the New Testament (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2002).

¹² Welch, “‘All Their Creeds Were an Abomination’,” 240.

¹³ Welch, “‘All Their Creeds Were an Abomination’,” 240.

¹⁴ Welch, “‘All Their Creeds Were an Abomination’,” 244.

¹⁵ See the thoughts in Joseph Fielding McConkie “The First Vision and Religious Tolerance,” in A Witness for the Restoration: Essays in Honor of Robert J. Matthews, ed. Kent P. Jackson and Andrew C. Skinner (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2007), 177–199.

¹⁶ For an exemplary Latter-day Saint approach to the Nicene Creed—which is a target in popular and often misinformed Latter-day Saint polemics—see Lincoln Blumell, “Rereading the Council if Nicaea and Its Creed,” in Standing Apart, 196–217. In this piece, Blumell engages with the Nicene Creed carefully and thoughtfully, articulating rightful points of critique while also acknowledging areas of agreement between it and Latter-day Saint theology. See also his interview with Laura Harris Hales in “Episode 112: The Council of Nicaea and Its Creed with Lincoln H. Blumell,” online at LDS Perspectives Podcast.

¹⁷ Discourse, 23 July 1843, as Reported by Willard Richards, p. 14, transcribed in History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 [1 July 1843–30 April 1844], p. 1681, thus: “Have the Presbyterians any truth? Yes. Have the Baptists, Methodists &c. any truth? Yes, they all have a little truth mixed with error. We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up or we shall not come out pure Mormons.” See further Terryl Givens, “‘We Have Only the Old Things’: Rethinking Mormon Restoration,” in Standing Apart, 335–342; Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015), 23–41.

March 26, 2020September 17, 2020

What Are the Doctrinal Contributions of the First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #17

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have studied the accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision over many decades— particularly the account canonized in the Pearl of Great Price—they have come to understand that the vision makes a number of important doctrinal contributions to the Restoration.¹ In a 2016 worldwide devotional for young adults, Elder Richard J. Maynes of the Seventy urged, “Joseph Smith’s First Vision is the key to unlocking many truths that had been hidden for centuries. Let us not forget or take for granted the many precious truths we have learned from the First Vision.”² So what, exactly, are some of the important truths we learn from the First Vision?

Perhaps the most fundamental truth that is learned from the First Vision is the reality of a personal God who speaks to His children. Indeed, this appears to have been the chief significance Joseph himself took away from his encounter with the Father and the Son.³ As President Henry B. Eyring testified, “Our challenge is to act so that we can receive the messages of truth Heavenly Father is ready to send to us as revelation and to recognize what He has already sent. Joseph Smith’s experience [in the Sacred Grove] provides an example of that.”⁴ The factors to receiving personal revelation that President Eyring felt were illustrated in the process leading up to the First Vision include diligently searching the scriptures, coming before the Lord with a contrite spirit and broken heart, and acting on faith in anticipation to receive an answer to prayer.

Another deeply important truth that Latter-day Saints today recognize from the First Vision concerns the nature of the Godhead. As President Dallin H. Oaks taught during the April 2017 general conference of the Church:

Our first article of faith declares, “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” We join other Christians in this belief in a Father and a Son and a Holy Ghost, but what we believe about Them is different from the beliefs of others. We do not believe in what the Christian world calls the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. In his First Vision, Joseph Smith saw two distinct personages, two beings, thus clarifying that the then-prevailing beliefs concerning God and the Godhead were not true.⁵

This point has been rightly emphasized by several Latter-day Saint writers.⁶ So too has been what the First Vision demonstrates about the existence of Satan and his opposition to the work of God.⁷ Joseph recorded in two of his four firsthand accounts of the vision that the adversary attempted to stop him from praying while seeking God in the grove.⁸ In his 1835 account, Joseph recounted,

I made a fruitless attempt to pray; my tongue seemed to be swollen in my mouth, so that I could not utter. I heard a noise behind me, like some person walking towards me. I strove again to pray but could not. The noise of walking seemed to draw nearer. I sprung up on my feet and looked around but saw no person or thing that was calculated to produce the noise of walking.⁹

In his 1838–39 retelling, Joseph portrayed this encounter with Satan more vividly.

After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. (Joseph Smith–History 1:15)

The Prophet described this opposition he experienced as “the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being” (Joseph Smith–History 1:16). He quickly learned like other prophets, however, that Satan’s power is limited and indeed impotent in the presence of the Almighty (Joseph Smith–History 1:16–17; cf. Moses 1:11–22). “That terrible opposition, which continued throughout Joseph’s life, came because Lucifer wanted to stop the revelation that would lead to the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” taught President Eyring. “Your prayers for revelation from God will face lesser opposition, but you need to follow Joseph’s example of courage and persistence.”¹⁰

A look at how Latter-day Saints over the years have come to understand the importance of the First Vision for bolstering and clarifying essential truths of the Restoration thus verifies the observation made by Milton V. Backman:

[Restoration doctrine] is, in the words of Stephen L. Richards (a former councilor in the First Presidency), “steeped in the verity of the First Vision.” It undergirds the doctrine of an anthropomorphic God and theomorphic man, of the relationships of the persons of the Godhead, and of continual revelation. Mormon prayers, hymns, forms of worship, and eschatology are all rooted in this understanding. It renews the witness of the Hebrew prophets that visions are not the least but the most reliable mortal access to the divine; that the majesty, glory, and power of God are “beyond description”; that the biblical record of face-to-face communion with God is more than a strained metaphor. It confirms the New Testament testimony of the apostles that God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate persons who manifest themselves as they are to the sons and daughters of God; and that the Son is in the similitude of the Father, and the Father in the similitude of the Son.¹¹

Footnotes

¹ For representative treatments, see Larry E. Dahl, “The Theological Significance of the First Vision,” in Studies in Scripture, Volume Two: The Pearl of Great Price, ed. Robert L. Millet and Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City, UT: Randall Book, 1985), 315–337; Larry C. Porter, “The Youth of the Grove and the Prophet of the Restoration,” in Joseph: Exploring the Life and Ministry of the Prophet, ed. Susan Easton Black and Andrew C. Skinner (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2005), 36–46; Richard D. Draper, S. Kent Brown, and Michael D. Rhodes, The Pearl of Great Price: A Verse–by–Verse Commentary (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2005), 336–343; J. B. Haws, “First Vision, doctrinal contributions of,” in Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2017), 123–125; Taylor Halverson and Lisa Halverson, Beautiful Truths from the First Vision (American Fork, UT: Covenant, 2020).

² Richard J. Maynes, “The First Vision: Key to Truth,” Ensign, June 2017, 65.

³ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “What Did Joseph Smith Learn from the First Vision?” Joseph Smith–History Insight #16 (March 25, 2020).

⁴ Henry B. Eyring, “The First Vision: A Pattern for Personal Revelation,” Ensign, February 2020, 14. See also Halverson and Halverson, Beautiful Truths of the First Vision, 35–41.

⁵ Dallin H. Oaks, “The Godhead and the Plan of Salvation,” Ensign, May 2017, 100.

⁶ Dahl, “The Theological Significance of the First Vision,” 315–316; Draper, Brown, and Rhodes, The Pearl of Great Price, 341–342; Haws, “First Vision, doctrinal contributions of,” 123–124; Maynes, “The First Vision,” 65; Halverson and Halverson, Beautiful Truths of the First Vision, 15–21.

⁷ Dahl, “The Theological Significance of the First Vision,” 321–324; Haws, “First Vision, doctrinal contributions of,” 123; Maynes, “The First Vision,” 64; Eyring, “The First Vision,” 16–17.

⁸ See also the secondhand accounts preserved in Orson Pratt, A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records (Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840), 5; Orson Hyde, Ein Ruf aus der Wüste, eine Stimme aus dem Schoose der Erde (Frankfurt: Im Selbstverlage des Verfassers, 1842), 14–15; Alexander Neibaur, Journal, 24 May 1844, extract, [p. 23].

⁹ Journal, 9–11 November 1835, 23–24, spelling standardized.

¹⁰ Eyring, “The First Vision,” 16.

¹¹ Milton V. Backman Jr., “First Vision,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow. MacMillan: New York, 1992), 1:516.

March 25, 2020September 17, 2020

What Did Joseph Smith Learn from the First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #16

Latter-day Saints have formulated a number of important theological or doctrinal points that can be learned from Joseph Smith’s First Vision. Some of these points include: searching the scriptures can bring revelation, God answers sincere prayers and forgives sins, Satan is real but his power is limited, and God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ are separate beings with human forms.¹ While these doctrinal contributions of the First Vision are certainly worthy of careful consideration by modern Latter-day Saints, another interesting question to ponder is what Joseph Smith himself may have learned from his vision of the Father and the Son and how that may have influenced his teachings and ministry. Because the Prophet gave multiple accounts of the First Vision, we are capable of piecing together fairly well what he saw, heard, and experienced on that occasion. We are also capable of creating some sense of what Joseph learned based on what the accounts explicitly record and what we might infer from reading between the lines.

Based on both first- and secondhand reports,² the following tables provide a synopsis of what Joseph heard and saw in his vision.³

Synoptic chart of what Joseph Smith saw in the First Vision. Click to enlarge.

Synoptic chart of what Joseph Smith heard in the First Vision. Click to enlarge.

As seen above, based on the explicit details of the surviving accounts of the First Vision, it is obvious that Joseph learned much from his encounter with the Father and the Son. First, he learned of the reality of a personal God and a personal Savior who answer prayers and are concerned for the well-being and salvation of humankind. In his 1832 account, Joseph—who as a youth became “convicted of [his] sins”—said that he sensed as though “there was none else to whom [he] could go and obtain mercy.” He therefore “cried unto the Lord for mercy” and testified that “the Lord heard [his] cry in the wilderness.”⁴ Indeed, as Joseph made clear six years later, from his vision in the grove he “had found the testimony of James to be true—that a man who lacked wisdom might ask of God, and obtain, and not be upbraided” (Joseph Smith–History 1:26).⁵

Another truth Joseph learned from the First Vision was of the reality of the Great Apostasy, which New Testament apostles had prophesied must occur before the Second Coming of the Lord (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12).⁶ Three out of the four firsthand accounts left by the Prophet indicate that Jesus confirmed this to young Joseph. “The world lieth in sin at this time,” Joseph quoted the Lord as telling him in his 1832 account, “and none doeth good, no, not one. They have turned aside from the gospel and keep not my commandments. They draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me.”⁷ Since it was intended for a non-Latter-day Saint audience, the account prepared by the Prophet in 1842 softened the language but still communicated the same point: “[The heavenly personages] told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom.”⁸ A year later, Joseph used what he learned in the First Vision about the apostasy in a sermon elaborating on Isaiah 24, 28–29.

at 6 AM. heard Eld. G[eorg]e J Adam Adams upon the book of Mormon proved from the 24,^th 28^th & 29^th of Isaiah that the everlasting covena[n]t set which was set upon by Christ & the apostles had been broken . . . Pres. J. Smith bore testimony to the same— saying that when he was a youth he began to think about these these things but could not find out which of all the sects were right— he went into the grove & enquired of the Lord which of all the sects were right— re received for answer that none of them were right, that they were all wrong, & that the Everlasting covena[n]t was broken.⁹

While these points are explicit in the surviving historical accounts, others must be teased out more cautiously. For instance, it is unclear preciously how the First Vision impacted Joseph’s understanding of the nature of the Godhead. To be sure, three out of the four firsthand accounts report two personages, the Father and the Son, being present in the vision. (The fourth seems to imply the presence of two personages, but is not explicit.¹⁰) Joseph also reported that one of the personages appeared first and then the second shortly after,¹¹ with the two of them “exactly resemble[ing] each other in features and likeness.”¹² Beholding something so extraordinary undoubtedly would have left a strong impression on the young boy, and it is probable that this encounter influenced Joseph’s teachings that God the Father and Jesus Christ both had tangible bodies of flesh and bone (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22–23).¹³ But because the Prophet himself was not explicit on this point, we must posit this cautiously. Based on surviving documentation, “it is difficult to know exactly what [Joseph] Smith concluded about the nature of the godhead from this experience.”¹⁴ A late, thirdhand account preserved by Charles Lowell Walker indicates that God the Father physically touched Joseph’s eyes before he saw the Savior in the vision.¹⁵ If this source is accurate, it would bolster the idea that Joseph learned something about the corporeality of God as early as 1820.¹⁶

By his own admission, there were “many things” which Joseph heard and saw in his vision which he could not fully describe (Joseph Smith–History 1:20). It is not clear, for instance, how long the vision lasted. As such, there will always be some remaining question as to what precisely the Prophet himself took away from his vision or how it otherwise affected him personally. What is clear, however, is that Joseph was completely confident in the reality of what he had experienced, and this confidence gave him encouragement in times of trial. “I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me,” he testified. “I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it” (Joseph Smith–History 1:25). Part of the excitement for Latter-day Saints today in studying the surviving First Vision accounts is trying to better appreciate the Prophet’s testimony and unfold its true significance.

Footnotes

¹ J. B. Haws, “First Vision, doctrinal contributions of,” in  Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2017), 123–125; “Eight Truths from the First Vision,” Ensign, February 2020, 19–21.

² See Pearl of Great Price Central, “Joseph Smith’s Firsthand Accounts of the First Vision,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #1 (February 4, 2020); “Secondhand Accounts of the First Vision,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #6 (February 19, 2020).

³ Charts adapted from James B. Allen and John W. Welch, “Analysis of Joseph Smith’s Accounts of His First Vision,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestation, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2017), tables 3 and 4, [pp. 75–76].

⁴ History, circa Summer 1832, 3, spelling and punctuation standardized.

⁵ See further Henry B. Eyring, “The First Vision: A Pattern for Personal Revelation,” Ensign, February 2020, 12–17.

⁶ Kent P. Jackson, “New Testament Prophecies of Apostasy,” in Sperry Symposium Classics: The New Testament, ed. Frank F. Judd Jr. and Gaye Strathearn (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2006), 394–406.

⁷ History, circa Summer 1832, 3, spelling and punctuation standardized.

⁸ “Church History,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 (March 1, 1842): 707.

⁹ Levi Richards, Journal, 11 June 1843, extract, [pp. 15–16].

¹⁰ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “Did Both the Father and the Son Appear to Joseph Smith in the First Vision?” Joseph Smith–History Insight #9 (March 3, 2020).

¹¹ See Journal, 1835–1836, 24.

¹² “Church History,” 707.

¹³ See Terryl Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015), 89–105; David L. Paulsen, “The Doctrine of Divine Embodiment: Restoration, Judeo-Christian, and Philosophical Perspectives, Part I: Restoration of the Doctrine of Divine Embodiment,” BYU Studies 35, no. 4 (1995–1996): 9–39; Jacob Neusner, “Conversation in Nauvoo about the Corporeality of God,” BYU Studies 36, no. 1 (1996–1997): 7–30.

¹⁴ Givens, Wrestling the Angel, 72.

¹⁵ A. Karl Larson and Katharine Miles Larson, eds., Diary of Charles Lowell Walker (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 1980), 2:755–756.

¹⁶ See further Givens, Wrestling the Angel, 72–73, 89–95; Don Bradley, “Joseph Smith’s First Vision as Endowment and Epitome of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (or Why I Came Back to the Church),” delivered at the 2019 FairMormon Conference.

March 24, 2020September 17, 2020

The Significance of the First Vision

Joseph Smith–History Insight #15

The accounts of the First Vision left by Joseph Smith establish the basic details of this supremely important historical experience. These details include the who, what, where, why, and when of the events surrounding the First Vision.¹ But beyond the historical details surrounding the First Vision itself is the importance or significance of the First Vision for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As historian James Allen pointed out several decades ago in two pioneering pieces of historical scholarship, there is the perceived reality of the First Vision—what the vision means, what it signifies, or what we learn from it—as much as there is the historical reality of that event.² The historical reality of the First Vision is captured in Joseph Smith’s primary accounts and, barring any major future discoveries, remains fairly solidified in the historical consciousness of modern Latter-day Saints. The perceived reality of the significance of the First Vision, on the other hand, has evolved over time as Latter-day Saints beginning with Joseph Smith himself have attempted to make sense of what the vision means for their faith and religious practice.

As Allen and others have explored at length, the meaning or significance assigned to the First Vision emerged slowly during Joseph Smith’s lifetime.³ The Prophet left some clues as to what he himself understood was the significance his vision in his firsthand accounts of that experience. In some of his accounts, especially from 1832 and 1835, but also in Orson Pratt’s secondhand presentation in 1840, Joseph conceptualized the importance of his vision in a deeply personal way.⁴ The importance of a personal God who forgives sins and answers the humble prayers of his children appears most prominently in these retellings. In his later accounts from 1838 and 1842 that were intended for a more public audience—and which were written when the Prophet had time to more carefully conceptualize and record what points he wanted to emphasize in his history—the First Vision took on more universal significance as a sign that Joseph had been called of God to usher in the last dispensation of the gospel after a long period of apostasy.⁵ The dichotomy between an early personal stage, on the one hand, and an institutional stage in his later First Vision formulations and usages, on the other, however, is not entirely rigid. For example, instructions not to join any existing church and their errors are already found in the 1832 account, and the points about Joseph’s prayers being answered and a special personal blessing having been given to him persist in Orson Hyde’s 1842 secondhand account.⁶

From surviving secondhand accounts, we now also know that Joseph at times told his vision in ways to highlight specific theological points beginning earlier than scholars had previously thought. For example, in the spring of 1835 in Michigan, Joseph spoke to believers about the First Vision to support the doctrine of continuing revelation. In Kirtland, Ohio in June 1835, he preached a Sabbath sermon on the requested topic of “This is My Beloved Son, Hear Him.” In 1837 in Toronto, Canada he spoke about the Father and the Son. In 1840, Samuel Bennett and Orson Pratt discussed, in Philadelphia, the bodily manifestation of God in connection with the First Vision, and both of them that year published booklets in defense of the Church.⁷ Finally, in a discourse delivered on June 11, 1843, the Prophet related his vision in a way that affirmed the reality of the Great Apostasy.⁸

It appears that while Joseph Smith used the First Vision often and for several purposes, including at times to discuss the nature of God,⁹ Latter-day Saints did not systematize any single special theological meaning or significance out of the First Vision in the early years of the Church. For example, whereas today Church members look to the First Vision to fortify a full understanding of the nature of the Godhead, a systematic approach was not fully developed until later in the nineteenth century with such works as Elder B.H. Roberts’s The Mormon Doctrine of Deity and into the twentieth century with the 1916 statement by the First Presidency on the Godhead.¹⁰ Such full articulation was beyond the capability and priorities for the first generation of converts to the Church of Jesus Christ.¹¹ This, Allen reasonably argues, might be because many of the details of Joseph’s vision were not widely known in the 1830s as well as because of the general wariness among Latter-day Saints to propound anything that seemed like a dogmatic creed.¹²

Another reason identified by Allen “may have been that the first generation of Mormon theologians placed so much emphasis on the idea that the restoration of the gospel began [in earnest] when the angel Moroni delivered the Book of Mormon [plates to Joseph in 1827]. This event, after all, was depicted from the beginning as fulfilling the prophecy in Revelation 14:6.”¹³ This can be seen in the example of Elder Orson Pratt in his 1840 pamphlet A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions. Pratt undertook one of the earliest attempts to draw theological or historical significance out of the First Vision. But instead of elaborating on how the First Vision clarified the nature of God, in this publication Pratt—as had Joseph himself in 1835—situated the vision of the Father and the Son as the first in a series of heavenly encounters leading to the recovery and translation of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.¹⁴ That was understandable, as Pratt was writing a missionary tract for investigators and new converts who would have tangible access to the text of the Book of Mormon but not to the accounts of First Vision. Furthermore, when earliest members of the Church spoke of “the Vision,” they often meant what is now known as Doctrine and Covenants 76, the grand vision of the degrees of glory experienced together by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon.¹⁵ There were many visions in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, so in the midst of those outpourings the focus of attention was still dynamic and broad.¹⁶

Elder Orson Pratt (1811–1881), who was instrumental in systematizing how Latter-day Saints approach and understand the significance of the First Vision. Engraving, Frederick Piercy, circa 1855 via the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

Although Pratt’s pamphlet was influential, it would still take several more years for Latter-day Saint writers to craft a full institutional narrative or understanding about the First Vision that had applicability for the faith of Church members worldwide. In what historian Steven Harper calls the creation of a “collective memory,”¹⁷ Latter-day Saints throughout the mid- to late-nineteenth century began delivering sermons, composing poems and hymns, writing tracts and books, and commissioning artwork that standardized how the First Vision was collectively imagined and communicated. Indeed, even the name First Vision (first used by Pratt in 1849) was itself coined as a way to position Joseph’s 1820 encounter with the Father and the Son in a broader historical and theological context in relation to his subsequent visions of Moroni and other heavenly personages.¹⁸ Fostering this growing significance of the First Vision in the collective thinking of Church members was the canonization of the Pearl of Great Price in the year 1880, which brought with it scriptural status for the 1838–39 account of the First Vision recorded in what is known today as Joseph Smith–History (vv. 1–26).

By the year 1920—one hundred years after the boy Joseph entered the grove of trees near his home to seek out God in prayer—the First Vision had secured an enormously important position for Latter-day Saints. In April of that year the Church’s magazine Improvement Era published an issue celebrating the centennial anniversary of the First Vision.¹⁹ Writing in that commemorative issue of the magazine, President Heber J. Grant heralded “the appearance of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ to the boy prophet Joseph Smith” as a “marvelous occurrence fraught with wonderous results” and nothing less than “the greatest event that has taken place in all the world since the birth of our Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.” He likewise deemed it “the most wonderful vision ever bestowed upon mortal man.”²⁰ Among other truths, the First Vision, President Grant continued, demonstrated the reality of the restoration of the gospel and the divine calling of Joseph Smith.²¹ That same month during the Church’s general conference, President Anthon H. Lund of the First Presidency preached that the First Vision was “the dawn of this last dispensation, the dispensation of the fulness of times. It was indeed the beginning, the very initiating of this work; and the Lord chose an instrument, not learned and educated, but a man who was willing to do that which he should be commanded to do.”²²

Today, leaders of the Church have further elaborated, emphasized, and clarified how the First Vision is significant for Latter-day Saints and, indeed, the entire world. In the October 2002 general conference of the Church, President Gordon B. Hinckley testified,

We declare without equivocation that God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared in person to the boy Joseph Smith. . . . Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens. Reflect upon it, my brethren and sisters. For centuries the heavens remained sealed. Good men and women, not a few—really great and wonderful people—tried to correct, strengthen, and improve their systems of worship and their body of doctrine. To them I pay honor and respect. How much better the world is because of their bold action. While I believe their work was inspired, it was not favored with the opening of the heavens, with the appearance of Deity. Then in 1820 came that glorious manifestation in answer to the prayer of a boy who had read in his family Bible the words of James: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). Upon that unique and wonderful experience stands the validity of this Church.²³

In 2005, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf bore testimony that “Joseph Smith’s First Vision blesses our own personal lives, the lives of families, and eventually the whole human family—we come to believe in Jesus Christ through the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”²⁴ More recently, the Church’s Ensign magazine has published talks by General Authorities once again articulating the valuable truths that we learn from the First Vision, including truths about the nature of God and Jesus Christ, how to receive personal revelation and answer to prayer, and the divine origins of the Church of Jesus Christ.²⁵

All of this demonstrates that, like God’s children of past dispensations, Latter-day Saints of this final dispensation learn truth line upon line, precept upon precept (2 Nephi 28:30). It often takes time and careful study to fully recognize and convey the unfathomable significance of when God enters into history and acts for the benefit of humankind; a point recognized by Elder Roberts over a century ago.

I believe “Mormonism” affords opportunity for disciples of the second sort; nay, that its crying need is for such disciples. It calls for thoughtful disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of its truths, but will develop the truths; and enlarge it by that development. Not half—not one-hundredth part—not a thousandth part of that which Joseph Smith revealed to the Church has yet been unfolded, either to the Church or to the world. The work of the expounder has scarcely begun. The Prophet planted by teaching the germ-truths of the great dispensation of the fulness of times. The watering and weeding is going on, and God is giving the increase, and will give it more abundantly in the future as more intelligent discipleship shall obtain. The disciples of “Mormonism,” growing discontented with the necessarily primitive methods which have hitherto prevailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the Church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas; co-operating in the works of the Spirit, until they help to give to the truths received a more forceful expression and carry it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of development.²⁶

“Once the [First Vision] assumed its predominant place in Mormon writing and preaching” in the latter half of the nineteenth century, observed Allen, “it became much more than Joseph Smith’s personal experience. It became a shared community experience. Every Mormon and every prospective convert was urged to pray for his own testimony of its reality–in effect, to seek his own theophany by becoming one with Joseph in the grove.”²⁷ This invitation remains extended today as the significance of Joseph Smith’s First Vision is shared throughout the world.

Footnotes

¹ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “Joseph Smith’s Firsthand Accounts of the First Vision,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #1 (February 4, 2020); Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2012).

² James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1966): 29–45; “Emergence of a Fundamental: The Expanding Role of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Mormon Religious Thought,” Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): 43–61.

³ Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” 29–45; “Emergence of a Fundamental,” 43–61; J. B. Haws, “First Vision, doctrinal contributions of,” in Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2017), 123–125; Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), esp. 47–258; Terryl Givens, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 223–240.

⁴ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “The 1832 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #2 (February 2, 2020); “The 1835 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #3 (February 11, 2020).

⁵ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “The 1838 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #4 (February 13, 2020); “The 1842 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #5 (February 18, 2020).

⁶ Orson Hyde, Ein Ruf aus der Wüste, eine Stimme aus dem Schoose der Erde (Frankfurt: Im Selbstverlage des Verfassers, 1842), 14–15.

⁷ See Harper, First Vision, 53–57.

⁸ Levi Richards, Journal, 11 June 1843, [pp. 15–16].

⁹ Harper, First Vision, 55, observes, “It has been argued and now widely assumed in academic circles that Joseph Smith’s theology began with a Trinitarian concept that transformed later into emphasis on the separate, embodied natures of God and Christ. If that is true, the supporting idea—that Smith’s first vision story was employed only after 1840 and especially emphasized late in the nineteenth century to effect that transformation—is not true. Smith and others were telling of the vision in the 1830s, and its implications for the trinity and materiality of God were asserted that early.”

¹⁰ B. H. Roberts, The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion (Salt Lake City, UT; The Deseret News, 1903); “The Father and the Son: A Doctrinal Exposition by the First Presidency and the Twelve,” Improvement Era, August 1916, 934–942.

¹¹ Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental,” 45–50.

¹² Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental,” 46–47.

¹³ Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental,” 52.

¹⁴ Orson Pratt, A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records (Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840), 3–6.

¹⁵ Matthew McBride, “The Vision,” in Revelations Context: The Stories Behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Matthew McBride and James Goldberg (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), 148–154.

¹⁶ Alexander L. Baugh, “Seventy-Six Accounts of Joseph Smith’s Visionary Experiences,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed. (Provo, UT: BYU Studies Press, 2017), 281–350.

¹⁷ Harper, First Vision, 71–76.

¹⁸ Harper, First Vision, 71–181; cf. Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental,” 50–56.

¹⁹ Improvement Era, April 1920; Harper, First Vision, 169–181.

²⁰ Heber J. Grant, “‘A Marvelous Work and a Wonder’,” Improvement Era, April 1920, 472.

²¹ Grant, “‘A Marvelous Work and a Wonder’,” 472–474.

²² Anthon H. Lund, Conference Report, April 1920, 18.

²³ Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith,” Ensign, November 2002, 80.

²⁴ Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Fruits of the First Vision,” Ensign, May 2005, 38.

²⁵ Joseph F. Merrill, “Joseph Smith Did See God,” Ensign, December 2015, 70–71; Richard J. Maynes, “The First Vision: Key to Truth,” Ensign, June 2017, 61–65; Henry B. Eyring, “The First Vision: A Pattern for Personal Revelation,” Ensign, February 2020, 13–17; cf. “Eight Truths from the First Vision,” Ensign, February 2020, 19–21.

²⁶ B. H. Roberts, “Book of Mormon Translation,” Improvement Era, July 1906, 713.

²⁷ Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental,” 58.

March 19, 2020September 17, 2020

How Did Joseph Smith Tell the Story of His First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #14

Joseph Smith was influenced in many ways by his time and culture. He spent his teenage years growing up in western New York’s so-called Burned-over District, which saw not only intense religious revivals and spiritual fervor but also an outpouring of books, tracts, newspaper articles, and oral accounts of the religious experiences of many men and women. It therefore “should come as no surprise,” as BYU English professors Neal Lambert and Richard Cracroft wrote in their ground-breaking 1980 study, that Joseph should tell about his First Vision “consciously or unconsciously” using “a literary style and structure similar to familiar conversion accounts spoken and written by his contemporaries.”¹

Insightfully, Lambert and Cracroft point out how Joseph’s “florid wording” in his 1832 account–with “soaring, solemn, and often tedious” expressions–attempted to match its rhetoric to the long-standing literary form of “spiritual autobiography.”² That autobiographic form, which was identified and outlined as early as 1670,³ was a common pattern that many people still in Joseph’s day used to convey with an elevated prose the struggles and sublimity of their spiritual experiences.

Joseph employed yet another approach in his “1835 impromptu recital.” It communicated a “simple and more confident style,” using “spare prose.” This “prefigured the simple eloquence of the 1838 version.”⁴ And because that 1838–39 rendition⁵ was intended to introduce a full history of “the rise and progress of the Church,” that telling, understandably, shifted its emphasis away “from the personal to the institutional,”⁶being concerned more with Joseph’s wrestle with which church to join and not just being forgiven of his previous sins or follies.

In addition, historian Richard L. Bushman has analyzed other narratives of spiritual experiences contemporary to Joseph Smith.⁷ Bushman compared Joseph’s 1838–39 account with the reports of visionary conversion experiences in 32 pamphlets published in the United States between 1783 and 1815, finding that “the stylistic similarities,” while interesting and plentiful, in the end “only highlight . . . the differences between Joseph and the host of now forgotten visionaries.” For instance, these “narratives of dreams and miraculous appearances did not imply the construction of any institutional form; they did not propose doctrine; they did not proclaim commandments. . . . They inspired awe at the presence of invisible powers made visible but were an occasion to marvel rather than to act.”⁸

Adding another high-level historical study to this discussion, in 2011 historian Christopher C. Jones convincingly argued that certain phrases in Joseph’s 1838–39 account find echoes especially in conversion narratives written by Methodist Christians.⁹ As Jones writes,

Examining Joseph Smith’s first vision in the context of Methodist concerns over the nature of true religion brings its message into sharper focus. While condemning all religious denominations, it spoke to specific Methodist concerns in antebellum America. Yet closer attention to the Methodist context also suggests that Methodism fundamentally shaped Smith’s early religious wanderings in important ways. Heavenly visions at the time of conviction and conversion were, in fact, common among Methodists of the day. And nowhere else did the rhetoric of true religion’s form and power appear more regularly than in both private and public conversion narratives of Methodism’s adherents. As other historians have previously pointed out, Joseph Smith’s earliest recorded recollections of his first vision resemble early American evangelical conversion narratives in both context and content. By focusing more specifically on the Methodist variation of the standard conversion narrative, it becomes clear that Smith’s own narratives bear distinct Methodist markers of influence.¹⁰

This all makes sense. In wrestling with the question about which church to join, young Joseph “became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and [he] felt some desire to be united with them” (Joseph Smith–History 1:8). As Jones has explored elsewhere, Methodism played a significant (though certainly not the only) role in shaping early Latter-day Saint religious identity and practice.¹¹

That Joseph would therefore narrate his First Vision in a style that would have been recognizable to him and would have appealed to many of his earliest followers is understandable. Most notably in this regard, an important component in Methodist religious identity was obtaining a “form” and the “power of godliness,” referring to the outward spiritual power that brought vitality to true Christian religious practice. John Wesley himself expressed fears that his followers’ quest for popularity would rob them of “the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out,” leaving them as “having the form of religion without the power.”¹² Those who lacked the power of godliness were deemed illegitimate, neither having the true form of Christian worship nor possessing the Lord’s power. Similarly, in his 1838–39 account, Joseph wrote that the Lord informed him that the sects of his day “teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” (Joseph Smith–History 1:19, emphasis added).

The Lord’s words would have resonated with both Joseph himself and anyone who shared a Methodist background or who knew the New Testament. “Over the course of the eighteenth century and during the first decades of the nineteenth, Methodists in both Great Britain and America regularly proclaimed that Methodism uniquely possessed both the form of godliness and the power of true religion. [These words] found expression in Methodist sermons, hymns, ecclesiastical reports, and even in the personal writings of laity and clergy.”¹³

At the same time, this expression drew particular strength because of its prominence in the Bible: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, . . . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:1–2, 5). Thus, for Joseph to report that all Christian sects (not just the Methodists) lacked the power of godliness would have been not only radical but also “particularly offensive” to his contemporaries,¹⁴ to say nothing of the fact that in his 1844 testimony, Joseph specifically said that he was told “No” when he asked the Lord if he “must join the Methodist Church.”¹⁵

Portrait of John Wesley (1703–1791), the founder of Methodism. Image via the National Portrait Gallery.

Another common theme in Methodist and other Protestant Christian conversion narratives that is brought out in Joseph’s First Vision account is the individual’s search for forgiveness of his or her sins. This theme is prominent especially in Joseph’s earlier retellings of the First Vision written in 1832 and 1835,¹⁶ whereas in the later accounts, Joseph’s quest to determine which church to join is the focal narrative element. Although some have seen this as contradictory, Jones explains how this would not necessarily be so, especially from the perspective of a Methodist conversion narrative.

While forgiveness for [Joseph Smiths] sins preoccupied the earlier account [of the First Vision], and the concern with which church was right consumes the later narrative, within the Methodist tradition, the two were not mutually exclusive questions. In fact, they were closely linked with one another. Perhaps Joseph Smith asked “which of all the sects was right” precisely because he felt that forgiveness of his personal sins was intimately tied to his joining a certain church.¹⁷

In certain important ways, however, Joseph’s First Vision story diverged from what was typical of contemporary nineteenth-century Methodist conversion narratives. For example, Jones points out that, like Joseph Smith, Methodist converts sometimes described visionary experiences of seeing the Lord. Unlike Joseph Smith, however, they frequently described their visions with guarded or sometimes deliberately vague language.

Methodists of the day carefully qualified the nature of their visionary experiences with phrases like “by faith, I saw . . .” or by affirming that it was just a dream. . . . Joseph Smith, by contrast, affirmed unambiguously that “it was nevertheless a fact, that I had had a vision. . . . I had actually seen a light and in the midst of that light I saw two personages, and they did in reality speak to me. . . . I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it.” It was thus not necessarily a matter of what Joseph Smith experienced, but rather how he explained it [that offended many contemporary Christians]. The straightforward and sure language he used to describe his vision filtered its meaning, making it more threatening to the Methodist minister in whom he confided.¹⁸

From all of this it is apparent that Joseph Smith’s First Vision accounts sometime align with and at other times react against what Jones calls “a community of discourse” that had been circulation in the early nineteenth century. The Prophet’s repition of the Lord’s use of phraseology from 2 Timothy 2:5 in particular “directly challenged Methodist claims to possess the form and power of godliness. Such a message resonated with those [Joseph] Smith attracted to the Mormon religion, many of whom criticized the Methodists as having rejected their heritage as a people who [once had more openly] embraced visions, dreams, and miraculous religion.”¹⁹

Just as the biblical authors consciously shaped their writings according to ancient literary conventions to best communicate their message,²⁰ so too did Joseph make “literary, structural, and stylistic” choices in testifying of his experience. More than reflecting any fundamental change in his “understanding of the event in the Sacred Grove,” these choices reveal a deliberate effort on the Prophet’s part to present his narrative in ways that would resonate with the needs and familiar speech patterns of his particular audience(s).²¹

While Joseph may have imitated some familiar literary or narrative conventions of the day, his depiction of the First Vision is anything but derivative or banal. Because he tailored his words authentically to meet the needs of his listeners and readers, his words speak powerfully. Careful readers of especially the 1838–39 account (now canonized in the Pearl of Great Price) have noticed the simple yet profound manner in which the Prophet communicated his experience. As Lambert and Cracroft have concluded:

[T]he 1838 account [of the First Vision] seem[s] remarkably plain and unadorned. [It] employ[s] for the most part, brief subject/verb structures, and simpler coordinating connectives, rather than the more complicated subordinating connectives of the earlier versions. The language itself is less high-blown and far more natural and restrained, using fewer and simpler adjectives and adverbs and concentrating more on nouns and verbs to carry the burden of meaning. Indeed the prose is so free from emotionally loaded words and phrases as to make us almost forget the cosmic significance of the events being recounted.²²

This linguistic honesty deeply impressed Dr. Arthur Henry King, an English language stylistician trained at the Universities of Cambridge and Lund. One of his skills was detecting linguistically whether or not people were telling the truth. King’s reaction as he read Joseph’s 1838–39 account of the First Vision for the first time is therefore noteworthy:

When I was first brought to read Joseph Smith’s story, I was deeply impressed. I wasn’t inclined to be impressed. As a stylistician, I have spent my life being disinclined to be impressed. So when I read his story, I thought to myself, this is an extraordinary thing. This is an astonishingly matter-of-fact and cool account. This man is not trying to persuade me of anything. He doesn’t feel the need to. He is stating what happened to him, and is stating it, not enthusiastically, but in quite a matter-of-fact way. He is not trying to make me cry or feel ecstatic. That struck me, and that began to build my testimony, for I could see that this man was telling the truth.²³

So how did Joseph Smith relate the experience of his First Vision? Obviously, this is not a simple question, and the answer is somewhat equally complex. But this much is clear: Joseph communicated effectively, literarily, personally, institutionally, purposefully, meaningfully, honestly, privately, publicly, sincerely, authentically, and spiritually. As a result, two centuries later, his surviving accounts of his First Vision experience continue to resound in every language, culture, and listening ear.

Footnotes

¹ Neal E. Lambert and Richard H. Cracroft, “Literary Form and Historical Understanding: Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): 35.

² Lambert and Cracroft, “Literary Form,” 33.

³ See Memoirs of the Rev. James Fraser of Brae, Minister of the Gospel at Culross, as quoted and discussed in Lambert and Cracroft, “Literary Form,” 33. While Fraser identified eight stages in the prototypical story of a pilgrim’s spiritual progress, more recent expositions compress these into five stages. See Virginia Brereton, From Sin to Salvation: Stories of Women’s Conversions, 1800 to the Present (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), 6, quoted in Christopher C. Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 101.

⁴ Lambert and Cracroft, “Literary Form,” 37.

⁵ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “The 1838 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #4 (February 13, 2020).

⁶ Lambert and Cracroft, “Literary Form,” 39–40, even taking on qualities of “mythic narrative.”

⁷ Richard L. Bushman, “The Visionary World of Joseph Smith,” BYU Studies 37, no. 1 (1997–1998): 183–204

⁸ Bushman, “Visionary World,” 193.

⁹ Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 88–114.

¹⁰ Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 90.

¹¹ Christopher C. Jones, “We Latter-day Saints are Methodists”: The Influence of Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity,” MA thesis, Brigham Young University (2009).

¹² Quoted in Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 89, see also 91n7.

¹³ Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 89.

¹⁴ Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 90.

¹⁵ Alexander Neibaur, Journal, May 24, 1844.

¹⁶ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “The 1832 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #2 (February 6, 2020); “The 1835 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #3 (February 11, 2020).

¹⁷ Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 110–111.

¹⁸ Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 113–114; cf. Pearl of Great Price Central, “Why Was Joseph Smith Initially Reluctant to Tell Others About the First Vision?” Joseph Smith–History Insight #12 (March 12, 2020).

¹⁹ Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness,” 114.

²⁰ See Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, rev. ed. (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011); The Art of Biblical Poetry, rev. ed. (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011).

²¹ Lambert and Cracroft, “Literary Form and Historical Understanding,” 32. For a detailed discussion of the audience for the nine main first- and second-hand accounts, see James B. Allen and John W. Welch, “Analysis of Joseph Smith’s Accounts of His First Vision,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestation, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2017), 37–77. See also, “Episode 5: ‘It Caused Me Serious Reflection’,” The First Vision: A Joseph Smith Papers Podcast.

²² Lambert and Cracroft, “Literary Form and Historical Understanding,” 38.

²³ Arthur Henry King, “Joseph Smith as a Writer,” in Arm the Children: Faith’s Response to a Violent World (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 1998), 288.

March 17, 2020September 17, 2020

Remembering Joseph Smith’s First Vision

Joseph Smith–History Insight #13

As historians strive to understand and interpret the past, they are dependent upon the memories of those who were there and who left a record of their experiences. This is especially true of the First Vision, in which we must rely on the memory of the only mortal participant: Joseph Smith. As such, it is important for those wishing to study the First Vision, or any other historical event, to understand both the limits and strengths of human memory. Historian Steven C. Harper has looked carefully at Joseph Smith’s First Vision accounts in light of memory studies, trying patiently to “listen” to Joseph remember his experience in each account.¹ As Harper explains, “Seekers strive to understand the dynamics of memory in order to listen more carefully to Joseph communicate his memories.”²

Memory is not the simple recall of information and events from one’s life, but is an active process that involves reconstructing the events in one’s mind again and again.³ The complexities of memory are such that it’s not a simple dichotomy between “accurate” and “inaccurate” memories. Nearly all memories have both reliable and unreliable elements in them. In his studies, Harper found that “Joseph’s accounts of his vision acknowledge that his memory was both limited and accurate.”⁴ Studying Joseph’s accounts about the First Vision with an understanding of both the nature and limitations of memory can help us not only better reconstruct the original vision itself, but also better recognize and understand what the vision meant to Joseph at various points of his life. “Joseph’s accounts of his first vision represent the event as he experienced it, both at the time and over time.”⁵

“Most memory evaporates,” Harper explains, “but when we focus on something repeatedly, it is processed into a secondary memory.”⁶ Secondary memories are more stable over time, and are strengthened by making emotional connections to our experiences. Long-term memory is also improved when we are conscious that we are remembering.⁷ This means that important events in our life can be more easily remembered, but peripheral details often become fuzzy or can slip from our minds altogether.

“Joseph Smith’s accounts of his first vision,” remarks Harper, “abound with these attributes of memory.”⁸ Joseph indicated both strong emotional connections and a “meta-awareness” indicative that he was deliberately and consciously remembering. His “feelings were deep,”⁹ and his “mind became seriously impressed.”¹⁰ This kind of language saturates his detailed accounts. “Joseph’s memories seem especially keen when they recall thoughts and the strong emotions he associated with them.”¹¹

Yet peripheral details, like his age, the exact day of the event, the time of year when the “religious excitement” began, and so on are all remembered more vaguely. He was “about” 14 years old, it was “sometime” in the second year after they moved to Manchester, and it was “early in the spring” when he kneeled to pray.¹² “Joseph Smith’s accounts of his vision show memory that was simultaneously vivid and vague.”¹³

Joseph’s accounts also illustrate the features of both factual memory (recollections of objective details) and interpretive memory (the meaning or significance that he assigned to the experience.)¹⁴ “Interpretive memories grow and change over time because they are shaped by events subsequent to the episode being remembered.”¹⁵ Thus, each of Joseph’s accounts reflect different emphases and details in part because they reflect what his vision meant to him at different stages of his life.

For example, the 1838 account has a strong emphasis on persecution, which is lacking in the other accounts.¹⁶ This account was written and edited in the midst of the hostilities of the Kirtland apostasy, the Missouri War, and Joseph’s imprisonment in Liberty Jail.¹⁷ In the midst of all of this, persecution loomed large on Joseph’s mind, and in his interpretive memory, “It seem[ed] as though the adversary was aware at a very early period of my life that I was destined to be a disturber and annoyer of his kingdom” (Joseph Smith–History 1:20, emphasis added).¹⁸

This does not mean Joseph was misremembering or making experiences up. Rather, it simply means that some recollections of his First Vision may not have been as marked and intense as Joseph later remembered them to have been. As Harper put it, “An outward observer would not likely interpret these events as intensely as [Joseph] Smith subjectively did.”¹⁹ To the contrary, the fact that Joseph’s accounts bare all the hallmarks—including the limitations—of human memory strongly suggests that these are authentic memories. Meaning, this is not a story Joseph just made up or fabricated. He is remembering a real experience he had in the woods as a boy. As Harper concludes:

Joseph created human memories of his first vision …. The reveal vivid memories of elements of the experience that deeply impressed him—anxious uncertainty prior to the theophany, the epiphany that resulted from reading and reflecting on James 1:5, the feeling of love and redemption from the theophany, the reality of the vision itself. Interpretive and introspective memories are present as well. … The accounts are not, by Joseph’s own admission, a flawless recreation of the event, nor are they “a complete fabrication of life events.” Despite distortions and limits in recounting the experience, Joseph’s accounts generally exhibit continuity. Moreover, they communicate to seekers Joseph’s memories of how he experienced the vision at the time and how he remembered it over time.²⁰

Footnotes

¹ See Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2012), 94–110; Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 9–44.

² Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 95.

³ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 95.

⁴ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 95.

⁵ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 95.

⁶ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 95.

⁷ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 97.

⁸ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 98.

⁹ History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 2.

¹⁰ History, circa Summer 1832, 1.

¹¹ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 100.

¹² History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 3.

¹³ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 104.

¹⁴ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 97.

¹⁵ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 97.

¹⁶ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 103–104.

¹⁷ For more details on the events in Joseph Smith’s life in 1838, including the persecutions he faced, see Alexander L. Baugh, “Joseph Smith in Northern Missouri, 1838,” in Joseph Smith: The Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2010), 291–346.

¹⁸ History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], 3, addenda, Note B.

¹⁹ Harper, First Vision, 18. See pp. 13–19 for a more detailed discussion of how Joseph Smith’s “persecuted present” shaped his account of 1838–39.

²⁰ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 110.

March 12, 2020September 17, 2020

Why Was Joseph Smith Initially Reluctant to Tell Others About the First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #12

Based on the extant documentary record, and by his own admission, Joseph Smith was at first reluctant to tell others about his First Vision. In the canonical 1838–39 account, Joseph reported that when his mother asked what had happened to him in the grove, he refrained from informing her about the vision.

When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother, “I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.” (Joseph Smith–History 1:20)

“Not only did [Joseph] initially refrain from describing his experience to his mother,” noted historian Ronald Walker, “he apparently told no one in his family at the time, though it is certain that he told them later. The one person he did tell, according to his record, was one of the local clergymen of the area, a man of the cloth whom he thought would understand and one whom he could trust.”¹ Indeed, as told in the canonical account, Joseph confided in “one of the Methodist preachers” who was active in the Palmyra, New York area.² However, after telling this preacher about the vision, Joseph was “greatly surprised at his behavior; he treated [Joseph’s] communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there would never be any more of them” (Joseph Smith–History 1:21).

It appears that Joseph told a few others about his vision in the early 1820s, but quickly discovered that doing so “excited a great deal of prejudice against [him] among professors of religion” (Joseph Smith–History 1:22). It’s likely that Joseph’s memory of this “great persecution” (Joseph Smith–History 1:22) that he experienced as a young man was amplified beyond its actual scope by the opposition he was exposed to during the Kirtland apostasy of 1837 and the Mormon War of 1838 at the time when he penned the account in the Pearl of Great Price.³ At the very least, though, it’s clear that Joseph took this criticism very personally (as one might reasonably expect from an impressionable teenage boy), and the negative reactions of the Methodist preacher and other Palmyra residents was enough to apparently startle the Prophet into relative silence for the remainder of his adolescence. As recognized by historian James Allen, there “is little if any evidence . . . that by the early 1830’s Joseph Smith was telling the story [of the First Vision] in public. At least if he were telling it, no one seemed to consider it important enough to have recorded it at the time, and no one was criticizing him for it.”⁴ Instead of the First Vision, as is common today, “the popular image of Mormon belief [in sources from the 1830s and 40s] centered around such things as the Book of Mormon, the missionary zeal, and the concept of Zion in Missouri.”⁵

Why is it, then, that Joseph was reticent to publicly talk about the First Vision until later in his life? As seen above, one obvious answer is that Joseph felt stung by the rejection and contempt he experienced as a teenager when he first began telling others about his vision. As Allen elaborates,

It is noted by some that in 1838 [Joseph Smith] declared that his basic reason for telling [the First Vision] even then, eighteen years after it happened, was in response to “reports which have been put in circulation by evil-disposed and designing persons” [ cf. Joseph Smith–History 1:1] who had distorted the facts. Furthermore, the young prophet said that he had been severely rebuffed the first time he told the story in 1820; and since it represented one of his most profound spiritual experiences, he could well have decided to circulate it only privately until he could feel certain that in relating it he would not receive again the general ridicule of friends.⁶

Another “possible explanation for the fact that the story of the vision was not generally known in the 1830’s is sometimes seen in Joseph Smith’s conviction that experiences such as these should be kept from the general public because of their extremely sacred nature.”⁷ Consistent with the practices of the early followers of Jesus,⁸ “[Joseph] kept sacred things sacred until it was otherwise required. As he did throughout his life, he desired his followers to have a measure of the same things that he experienced. They, too, would need to exercise discretion in caring for what was revealed to them.” As seen in a general pattern of guarded behavior on Joseph’s part when it came to him relating details about his visions to others, “It is clear that his early instincts and early instructions from the Lord caused him to treat his experiences with great care. Later, when it became expedient, he was more forthcoming about what had happened to him. But even then, we have just glimpses and squints at the scope of his experiences.”⁹

Joseph’s early reluctance to speak publicly about his First Vision, however, should not be mistaken as evidence of fabrication.¹⁰ As Allen himself points out, Joseph began privately recording and retelling the details of his First Vision “during the formative decade of church history.”¹¹ Besides the surviving contemporary historical sources,¹² later reminiscences left by others also remember Joseph telling public audiences about the First Vision by the mid-1830s.¹³ The point, therefore, is not that Joseph was opportunistically concocting stories of visions to suit his purposes, but rather that “if Joseph Smith told the story to friends and neighbors in 1820, he stopped telling it widely by 1830” and only gradually divulged it to a more public audience beginning in the mid- to late-1830s.¹⁴ By the end of his life Joseph–no longer the insecure teenager of Palmyra–felt confident enough to publish accounts of his First Vision for the entire world to scrutinize.¹⁵

Footnotes

¹ Ronald O. Barney, “Joseph Smith’s Visions: His Style and his Record.” Presented at the 2013 FairMormon Conference, August 2013.

² On the possible, though unconfirmed, identity of this Methodist preacher, see “Who Was the Minister Joseph Smith Spoke to About His Vision?” Joseph Smith–History Insight #11 (March 10, 2020).

³ See Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 13–21.

⁴ James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1966): 30, emphasis in original.

⁵ Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” 31.

⁶ Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” 34.

⁷ Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” 34.

⁸ Hugh Nibley, “Censoring the Joseph Smith Story, Part I,” Improvement Era, July 1961, 522.

⁹ Barney, “Joseph Smith’s Visions: His Style and his Record.”

¹⁰ Nibley, “Censoring the Joseph Smith Story, Part I,” 522; “Censoring the Joseph Smith Story,” Improvement Era, November 1961, 813.

¹¹ Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” 35–37, quote at 35.

¹² See “Joseph Smith’s Firsthand Accounts of the First Vision,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #1 (February 4, 2020); “Secondhand Accounts of the First Vision,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #6 (February 19, 2020).

¹³ Harper, First Vision, 53–57.

¹⁴ Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” 44.

¹⁵ Joseph’s 1838–39 account was published in 1842 as part of the series “History of Joseph Smith” (Times and Seasons 3, no. 10 [March 15, 1842]: 726–728; Times and Seasons 3, no. 11 [April 1, 1842]: 748–749). At the same year Joseph also published his “Church History” editorial, known also as the Wentworth Letter, which was republished two years later. See “The 1842 First Vision Account,” Joseph Smith–History Insight #5 (February 18, 2020).

March 10, 2020September 17, 2020

Who Was the Minister Joseph Smith Spoke to About His Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #11

In the canonized account of the First Vision, Joseph Smith remembered confiding in a Methodist minister and received a stinging rebuke.¹

Some few days after I had this vision, I happened to be in company with one of the Methodist preachers, who was very active in the before mentioned religious excitement; and, conversing with him on the subject of religion, I took occasion to give him an account of the vision which I had had. I was greatly surprised at his behavior; he treated my communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there would never be any more of them. (Joseph Smith—History 1:21)

The impact of this rejection may have shaped how and when Joseph did (and did not) tell his story for years to come.² Yet this is the only time Joseph ever mentioned this encounter, and none of his firsthand accounts disclose the name of this preacher. It is therefore impossible to know for certain who this preacher was. There is, however, one Methodist preacher named by both Oliver Cowdery and William Smith as being influential in the religious excitement leading up to Joseph Smith’s vision, and even in potentially prompting Joseph Smith to pray and ask God in the first place—Rev. George Lane.³

Rev. George Lane was an itinerant Methodist minister in the northern Pennsylvania and western New York area in the early 1820s.⁴ He was remembered for his powerful preaching. A contemporary who heard him preach at a camp meeting in 1819 said, “The exhortations of the presiding elder, George Lane, were overwhelming. Sinners quailed under them, and many cried aloud for mercy.”⁵

According to Oliver Cowdery, in Joseph Smith’s “15th year [1820] … One Mr. Lane, a presiding Elder of the Methodist church, visited Palmyra, and vicinity. Elder Lane was a tallented man possessing a good share of literary endowments, and apparent humility. … Mr. Lane’s manner of communication was peculiarly calculated to awaken the intellect of the hearer, and arouse the sinner to look about him for safety—much good instruction was always drawn from his discourses on the scriptures, and in common with others, our brother’s [i.e., Joseph Smith’s] mind became awakened.”⁶ William Smith remembered Rev. Lane specifically exhorting anyone who was uncertain about which church to join to follow the counsel of James 1:5, and this prompting Joseph to act on Lane’s words.⁷

There is some question as to the reliability of these recollections, however, since Rev. Lane was not placed over the Ontario Circuit (which included Palmyra) until 1824, and primarily worked in northern Pennsylvania between 1819 and 1823.⁸ The issue is further complicated by ambiguities in both Oliver’s and William’s narratives. After introducing Rev. Lane in an 1820 setting, Oliver relocates his narrative to the year 1823, and proceeds to tell of the visit of Moroni rather than the First Vision.⁹ Thus, it is ambiguous as to whether Oliver meant to indicate whether Rev. Lane was influential in 1820 or 1823.¹⁰ In William’s late reminiscences, he also frequently conflates details from Joseph Smith’s First Vision in 1820 with Moroni’s visit in 1823, and William’s accounts may actually be dependent on Oliver’s narrative.¹¹

Joseph Smith, unfortunately, never mentioned Rev. Lane by name, and thus never clarified what, if any, influence the preacher had on him in his youth. In light of the accounts from Oliver Cowdery and William Smith, however, it is noteworthy that, according to historian Larry C. Porter, “Lane was in the geographical proximity of Joseph Smith on a number of occasions between the years 1819 and 1825.”¹² In particular, Lane attended the Genesee Conference held in Phelps in July 1819—less than 15 miles from the Smith farm and likely part of the “unusual excitement” Joseph remembered leading up to the First Vision.¹³ Thus, Joseph may, indeed, have heard Rev. Lane preach prior to his First Vision, as Oliver and William described.¹⁴

Could Rev. Lane also be the unnamed preacher mentioned by Joseph, in whom he confided after his vision? Porter notes, “In July 1820, Lane would have had to pass through the greater Palmyra-Manchester vicinity on his way to Niagara, Upper Canada,” to the Genesee Conference, that year held at Lundy’s Lane.¹⁵ As was customary, Lane stopped and preached at camp-meetings along the way to and from the conference.¹⁶ This potentially could have afforded Joseph the opportunity to speak to Lane a few months after his vision, if Lane indeed was the minister Joseph remembered confiding in. Others, however, have argued that the minister Joseph was referring to was someone more regularly in the Palmyra area.¹⁷

Even though the “nature and degree, or indeed the actuality, of their acquintanceship during this interval” remains uncertain, Porter concludes, “it is easy to see that Joseph Smith could have had contact with Lane at a number of points during this extended period.”¹⁸

Footnotes

¹ For context and background on the minister’s reaction, see Christopher C. Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 2 (2011): 88–114, esp. 112–114.

² See Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 9–12.

³ See Oliver Cowdery, “Letter III,” Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 3 (December 1834): 42; William Smith Interview with E. C. Briggs, 1893, in Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1996–2003), 1:513.

⁴ For greater details on the life of George Lane, see Larry C. Porter, “Rev. George Lane—Good ‘Gifts,’ Much ‘Grace,’ and Marked ‘Usefulness,’” in Exploring the First Vision, ed. Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2012), 199–226.

⁵ George Peck, Life and Times of Rev. George Peck (New York, NY: Nelson & Phillips, 1874), 109.

⁶ Cowdery, “Letter III,” 42. Note that the phrase “the 15th year” refers to when Joseph was 14, i.e., the year 1820. See “How Old was Joseph Smith at the Time of the First Vision,” Joseph Smith—History Insight #8 (February 27, 2020).

⁷ William Smith Interview, EMD 1:513.

⁸ See Porter, “Rev. George Lane,” 209–210, 216. Interestingly, as Porter notes (pp. 210–212), Lane’s circuit at this time included Harmony, PA, making it likely that he knew the family of Emma Hale (Joseph’s future wife), who were devout Methodists.

⁹ See Oliver Cowdery, “Letter IV,” Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 5 (February 1835): 78.

¹⁰ On this confusing sequence in Oliver’s narrative, see Roger Nicholson, “The Cowdery Conundrum: Oliver’s Aborted Attempt to Describe Joseph Smith’s First Vision in 1834 and 1835,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 8 (2014): 27–44. See also Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Accuracy on the First Vision Setting: The Pivotal 1818 Palmyra Camp Meeting,” in Exploring the First Vision, 121–131; Porter, “Rev. George Lane,” 217–219.

¹¹ See Kyle R. Walker, William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet (Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 45–49; Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Accuracy,” 119–121, 130–131, 139–141.

¹² Porter, “Rev. George Lane,” 215.

¹³ Porter, “Rev. George Lane,” 209–210, 215. On the 1819 conference being part of the religious excitement leading up to the First Vision, see “Religious Excitement near Palmyra, New York, 1816–1820,” Joseph Smith—History Insight #7 (February 24, 2020).

¹⁴ See Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Accuracy,” 130.

¹⁵ Porter, “Rev. George Lane,” 215.

¹⁶ Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Accuracy,” 130, makes note of a camp meeting (held in Honeoye, NY, about 22 miles southwest of Palmyra) which Lane attended in July 1820, but says “it seems a little too far and definitely too late to be relevant for the First Vision early that spring.” Anderson does not mention anything about the possibility of Lane being the preacher Joseph spoke to after his vision.

¹⁷ See D. Michael Quinn, “Joseph Smith’s Experience on a Methodist ‘Camp-Meeting’ in 1820,” Dialogue Paperless #3 (December 2006): 45, 51–54 for a review of potential candidates.

¹⁸ Porter, “Rev. George Lane,” 215, 217.

Month: March 2020

Are the Christian Creeds Really an Abomination?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #18

Further Reading

Footnotes

What Are the Doctrinal Contributions of the First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #17

Further Reading

Footnotes

What Did Joseph Smith Learn from the First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #16

Further Reading

Footnotes

The Significance of the First Vision

Joseph Smith–History Insight #15

Further Reading

Footnotes

How Did Joseph Smith Tell the Story of His First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #14

Further Reading

Footnotes

Remembering Joseph Smith’s First Vision

Joseph Smith–History Insight #13

Further Reading

Footnotes

Why Was Joseph Smith Initially Reluctant to Tell Others About the First Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #12

Further Reading

Footnotes

Who Was the Minister Joseph Smith Spoke to About His Vision?

Joseph Smith–History Insight #11

Further Reading

Footnotes