When is a first vision not first and not a vision?

[Vlad the Emailer]

Amongst the DAMU I've seen the point made many times that for the earliest Mormon converts there was no first vision. That they converted to the idea of Joe's prophetic calling in translating the golden bible and starting a church based, more or less, on new scripture and the true prophet that produced it. Nothing about any first vision until, what was it, 1838? Almost 20 years after the most important event since the resurrection nearly 2,000 years before?

But I'm interested in knowing more about this assertion. What it is based on. Is it based on the fact (or assertion) that there was no record of the historic event when it happened or soon afterward? That even though Joe said he told people about it, ministers and the like, no on ever (as far as we know) wrote anything in a newspaper or even a church bulletin about a youngster going around claiming to have spoken to God (two of them, for that matter)?

In other words, how do we know (or at least are extremely sure) about the timing of the creation of the first vision story? It's been said that first visions and priesthood ordinations came at times when Joe's authority was being questioned. Is there a timeline for that?

I ask because this all fits so well with everything else about Joe and his new church, but I just don't know what details there are to back it up.

[wtfluff]

The first written version doesn't appear until 1832, if that helps...

[moksha]

The answer to almost all of these religious questions lies in Jon McNaughton's exquisite painting One Nation Under Gods, which can be found in the celebrated Visitor's Center at Temple Square.

[Corsair]

Here's an enlightening way to show how unimportant and relatively unknown the First Vision was for the LDS people in the early church. General Conference Corpus is an excellent resource for both believers and apostates. It is a full text search tool of all general conference addresses back to the 1850s. Search for "First Vision" and you will find no references to this until 1872 with a mere two mentions by Orson Pratt. Elder Pratt also mentions "First Vision" one more time in reference to Paul's experience on the road to Damascus in 1871.

There are no conference references to Joseph Smith's First Vision in the 1880s but a few more appear in the 1890s through 1910s. Finally, starting in the 1920s were get a dozen or two solid references in every decade up until today.

The First Vision was not a solid part of the LDS canon and culture until the time of Heber J. Grant. It was somewhat known before that time, but Joseph't prophetic calling was established with the Book of Mormon, not the First Vision. Missionaries in the 19th century did not use the First Vision as a conversion tool although Moroni's visit prior to the Book of Mormon was better known.

Records show that in June 1828, Joseph Smith applied for membership in his wife's Methodist Church. He also joined Methodist classes taught there. It does not sound like God's injunction to not join any church was followed by young Joseph. This makes the First Vision experience look less important to Joseph.

[deacon blues]

Thanks Corsair for the "General conference Corpus" resource site. It's very interesting.

[didyoumythme]

But I'm interested in knowing more about this assertion. What it is based on. Is it based on the fact (or assertion) that there was no record of the historic event when it happened or soon afterward? That even though Joe said he told people about it, ministers and the like, no one ever (as far as we know) wrote anything in a newspaper or even a church bulletin about a youngster going around claiming to have spoken to God (two of them, for that matter)?

There is close to no record of the first vision happening, let alone in 1820. Like you mentioned, no one, including his own family, mentioned it back then. Even despite the fact that the PoGP says that all sects united to persecute him at that time. Another concerning detail is that people early on would often mix the first vision events with the moroni visitations as we understand them today. There is also substantial evidence to indicate that this religious revival that allegedly inspired JS to pray to God happened in 1824, not 1820. This is a serious problem because if the first vision did not happen until 1824, then JS has some explaining to do about Moroni visiting in 1823, then JS returning to the hill every year in September until 1827.

Oliver Cowdery published a very interesting version of the first vision events mingled with the moroni visitation in 1835. There is plenty there that doesn't line up with events in the PoGP. I could share more details but it will be better for you to read for yourself.

http://mit.irr.org/changing-first-visio ... d-advocate
http://www.mormonthink.com/firstvisionweb.htm
http://utlm.org/onlinebooks/changech6.htm

[Culper Jr.]

Bushman discusses it in Rough Stone Rolling; that's the first I had heard of it. Something I was reading also added that Lucy Smith originally didn't have anything about the first vision in her biography of her son, but that it was added in later. Many other minute details were included from around that time in her account, but not that. Also of interest, nothing about the visitations of John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John until much later (1835?)

They just retconned it as they went along. Reading Quinn's Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, it really hit me how much the church changed from its beginnings NY/PA, then to Kirtland and then to Nauvoo. It started out as this sort of this Christian magical treasure deal with all kinds of divinations and incantations, and then was later morphed into a "legitimate" organized religion with influence from Sidney Rigdon, then on to polygamy and temple rites. He finally got the first vision account the way he wanted it on about the 10th rewriting in 1838. The early church was nothing like how it is portrayed today.

[moksha]

The answer to almost all of these religious questions lies in Jon McNaughton's exquisite painting One Nation Under Gods, which can be found in the celebrated Visitor's Center at Temple Square.

I feel a need to challenge this post. I think you included it just to goof on the idea that patriotic Mormon artist Jon McNaughton would create a painting called One Nation Under Gods. You know this painting would feature Elder Bruce R. McConkie and the Ayatollah Khomeini, wrapped in the banner of God, directing missiles at disbelievers rather than specifically answering religious questions. Get with the program for once and quit joking around!!!

[foolmeonce]

The answer to almost all of these religious questions lies in Jon McNaughton's exquisite painting One Nation Under Gods, which can be found in the celebrated Visitor's Center at Temple Square.

I feel a need to challenge this post. I think you included it just to goof on the idea that patriotic Mormon artist Jon McNaughton would create a painting called One Nation Under Gods. You know this painting would feature Elder Bruce R. McConkie and the Ayatollah Khomeini, wrapped in the banner of God, directing missiles at disbelievers rather than specifically answering religious questions. Get with the program for once and quit joking around!!!

Ok penguin, I'll bite on the thread jack bait, I'm assuming that this is the painting you're talking about?

http://jonmcnaughton.com/one-nation-under-god/

Wow, this painting reveals a painfully limited world view. I think a discussion of it deserves a it's own thread.

[foolmeonce]

The answer to almost all of these religious questions lies in Jon McNaughton's exquisite painting One Nation Under Gods, which can be found in the celebrated Visitor's Center at Temple Square.

I feel a need to challenge this post. I think you included it just to goof on the idea that patriotic Mormon artist Jon McNaughton would create a painting called One Nation Under Gods. You know this painting would feature Elder Bruce R. McConkie and the Ayatollah Khomeini, wrapped in the banner of God, directing missiles at disbelievers rather than specifically answering religious questions. Get with the program for once and quit joking around!!!

Ok penguin, I'll bite on the thread jack bait, I'm assuming that this is the painting you're talking about?

http://jonmcnaughton.com/one-nation-under-god/

Wow, this painting reveals a painfully limited world view. I think a discussion of it deserves a it's own thread.

I mean come on, I agree that Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was pivotal to starting a new way of life, but he was also a hedonistic slave holder who maneuvered endlessly to keep slavery alive in the South. Should that guy really be at the right hand of Christ??

Also, what's with the stigma around being educated and informed??? Come on, the professor and the media sitting in Satan's corner because they what, enable folks to use their brains??? (see, new thread required).

[Charlotte]

I thought I read that "The First Vision" (any version) came to be called "first" to distinguish it from the vision of the three degrees of glory that was known as "The Vision." I thought I read that that vision was much more talked about and even initially resisted by people like BY.

I also read in a book by Kathleen Flake about the end of polygamy and the Reed Smoot hearings that the First Vision and all founding events were sort of resurrected and brought back to the fore as the church was attempting to redefine itself in the world 'S and even its own members' eyes. Kind of: okay, we're letting polygamy go, now what are we about?

[Gatorbait]

The story of the first vision is just that- a story. People love stories, and stories then and now might be based on facts, but that does not make them true.

We might ought to put this first vision story in that context. All four published versions....that I know of. When someone tells me that they see a light that is brighter than the sun, well, I'm not sure the human eye can pick human like figures out of that bright of a light. Just saying....

[AllieOop]

Amongst the DAMU I've seen the point made many times that for the earliest Mormon converts there was no first vision.

Something that was interesting for me to learn was that Brigham Young never spoke of the first vision (that we have a record of). In all his many public discourses, he never once mentioned it. He refers to visions generally, but never specifically about the first vision or what transpired in the grove.

And it's true that Lucy Mack Smith did not write about or mention the first vision in her first history for Joseph (and the church events) that she began writing shortly after Joseph's death. Brigham Young ordered all copies of that history to be destroyed and the later versions had the first vision account inserted (word for word as it had appeared elsewhere).

Lucy stated that this was her intent for writing the history:

"to write down every particular [of Joseph's upbringing and visions] as far as possible and if those who wish to read them will help me a little they can have it all in one piece to read at their leasure"

But then she doesn't write about the first vision? That's very revealing.

Kathleen Flake gives a good overview of how the story of the first vision evolved (in her book about the Smoot hearings). It wasn't until 1905 (the 100 year anniversary of Joseph Smith's birthday) that Church leaders decided to focus on the First Vision as a cornerstone of the restoration.

Here's what she wrote:

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

[AllieOop]

Amongst the DAMU I've seen the point made many times that for the earliest Mormon converts there was no first vision.

Something that was interesting for me to learn was that Brigham Young never spoke of the first vision (that we have a record of). In all his many public discourses, he never once mentioned it. He refers to visions generally, but never specifically about the first vision or what transpired in the grove.

And it's true that Lucy Mack Smith did not write about or mention the first vision in her first history for Joseph (and the church events) that she began writing shortly after Joseph's death. Brigham Young ordered all copies of that history to be destroyed and the later versions had the first vision account inserted (word for word as it had appeared elsewhere). That later version was not published until 1901 (under the direction of Joseph F. Smith).

Lucy stated that this was her intent for writing the history:

"to write down every particular [of Joseph's upbringing and visions] as far as possible and if those who wish to read them will help me a little they can have it all in one piece to read at their leasure"

But then she doesn't write about the first vision? That's very revealing.

Kathleen Flake gives a good overview of how the story of the first vision evolved (in her book about the Smoot hearings). It wasn't until 1905 (the 100 year anniversary of Joseph Smith's birthday) that Church leaders decided to focus on the First Vision as a cornerstone of the restoration.

Here's what she wrote:

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

[moksha]

The answer to almost all of these religious questions lies in Jon McNaughton's exquisite painting One Nation Under Gods, which can be found in the celebrated Visitor's Center at Temple Square.

Yeah, that one is passable.
http://jonmcnaughton.com/one-nation-under-god/

But get a load of Jon McNaughton's new masterpiece:


The All American Church of Bundy under God

[Hagoth]

OK, I know that's from Far Cry 5, but I had to check to make sure. McNaughton's new Trump painting isn't much better. I would not be surprised to see a McNaughton painting of one of the Bundys waving the constitution in one hand, the Book of Mormon in the other, and, just for good measure, The head of an illegal alien in a third.