If you're bored/interested: My First Vision section of a project I'm working on...

[jfro18]

So I had posted earlier about doing this through PMs/email, but honestly who cares if people see a work in progress, right? And doing a bunch of separate PMs/emails is tough for me to keep track of, so away we go!

Anyway... I'm working on a project to do some basic summaries of each of the big topics and then have them on either a new site or on the current site as both a downloadable PDF and interactive/standard website page.

The idea is to be more up to date than the CES Letter/Letter For My Wife as well as getting rid of the areas that apologists hammer them on. This is *not* to compete with them because the CES Letter will always be *the* document, but just a way for me to put all my crap together and then be pretty much done with historical stuff.

If you're bored and want to read and comment, the First Vision section is up now @ https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/btf-firstvision

The things I am trying to focus on are:

1. Format - does it look easy to read and follow?
2. Tone - Is it as neutral as possible? Obviously it's from a critical point of view, but I'm trying to tone it down from the CES Letter and my other writings as much as I can.
3. Length - Is it too long? Is it too short?
4. Content - Are there areas where I am forgetting important info? Are some areas too short to understand or too long rambling?
5. Anything else that stands out to you - any areas where I might be wrong on conclusions/evidence?

Like I said, if you don't want to read this stuff anymore... don't worry. If you are interested, have a read and post here to let me know what you think. I have some others reading it elsewhere so this will give me a good idea of what works, what doesn't work, and if this is helpful as a summary of both the problems and apologetics without getting too deep in the weeds.

Thanks to anyone who reads through this stuff... if people are interested I'll post sections as I go which will hopefully be like once a week. Work is killing me lately though so we'll see how that works out.

[Corsair]

This is a great project that is going to be increasingly relevant. Next year is the two hundred year anniversary of the First Vision and I eagerly await whatever the church attempts to say about it. April 2020 General Conference should be talking all about this, but I have the feeling that it will be acknowledged in as little detail as possible.

[Red Ryder]

I admire your bandwidth capacity to do this sort of thing. I’ve often thought about writing a book that captures the insanity of Mormon faith crisis but it always comes down to time wasted. I’ve given up so much time to this church while believing in it. I’ve also given up so much time to this church while disbelieving in it.

I guess it comes back to helping others navigate their own faith crisis.

You’re doing a great job! I’ll probably waste more of my time and read through your stuff.

[deacon blues]

You bring up some interesting new data. The Alexander Campbell quote was cool. D&C 20 speaks very briefly of Joseph being forgiven of his sins before being visited by the angel. I think this could be interpreted as a brief mention of something. Is it about the first vision? I’m interested on your thoughts on this. I like your writing style. I’ll read more when I get the time.

[felixfabulous]

I think this is great work. I don't think a lot of people connect the dots to why the different accounts are problematic (I did not at first). I think you've done a great job with tone and organization. It's really hard to be able to cover all the material and not have it go on too long. Could you do an executive summary at the top, 1-2 paragraphs explaining why the facts are problematic and what you will be discussing?

I know I am different than most who post here, but my personal beliefs are more in line with the Community of Christ view that Joseph had some kind of mystical experience (probably in 1824 or so) where he felt called to a prophetic mission which was largely centered around bringing forth the BOM. He was looking to answer key questions such as reconciling universalism and calvinism, the secularization of America, the threat of Masonry and healing fractures in his own family. He did this all in the backdrop of a setting in ancient America (an obsession at that time). I agree with Dan Vogel that this was sincere and that he used his background in magick and showmanship to justify the golden plates story and using treasure lore, some props and slight of hand to generate buzz about the BOM before it was written. I think he used the very common magical practice of scrying to focus his mind and some combination of his subconscious and inspiration helped him dictate the BOM narrative (stone in the hat).

The initial mystical experience was reworked into two narratives, the First Vision narrative and the Angel Moroni narrative. You've laid out the issues with the First Vision narrative very well. The Moroni narrative also has big problems that show it was backdated and had several iterations. I think the data shows that these came from one original mystical experience.

[Red Ryder]

I too think he had a mystical experience.

A mystical experience facilitated by psilocybin or DMT.

He followed his “vision” before succumbing to the natural man trappings of power, money, and sex.

[jfro18]

I too think he had a mystical experience.

A mystical experience facilitated by psilocybin or DMT.

He followed his “vision” before succumbing to the natural man trappings of power, money, and sex.

I go back and forth on this... I don't believe he had a "First Vision" just because of how backdated and retrofitted the story is.

But he did reference other visions but if he made up some of these (First Vision and seeing Peter, James, and John are two easy examples) why would I believe he ever had a vision?

It just doesn't make sense, and the way he uses revelation to help himself out of problems constantly makes it impossible for me to believe he was really having experience with the divine.

I guess for me I just think the evidence is too overwhelming that he made a lot of the things we can actually research up, so I can't then believe the stuff he claimed that we can't verify would have actually happened.

[blazerb]

I am going to spend more time reading through this. My first impression is that this is great. For me, the fact that there are no contemporary mentions of the 1st vision is key, more than the contradictions. I think he was just trying to one-up the others around him.