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First Vision

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Stained glass depiction of the first vision of Joseph Smith, Jr., completed in 1913 by an unknown artist (Museum of Church History and Art).

The First Vision or First Visitation of Joseph Smith, Jr. is a vital part of most Latter Day Saint traditions (or Mormon) belief. . According to his 1838 account, Smith said he had a theophany in which God the Father and Jesus Christ told him to reestablish Christ's church.

Background

Northern and western New York frequently experienced religious revivals, which would later lead to its being termed the Burned-over district. Several religions were established in this era, including the faith Smith founded, sometimes called the Latter Day Saint movement, represented by its largest sect, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As a boy living in Palmyra, New York, Joseph Smith, Jr., reported he was unsure which of the various religious sects he should join. His father's family had converted to the Presbyterian faith, and four had joined the local church. He was considering joining the Methodist church when he claims the following events happened.

Summary of Joseph Smith, Jr.'s 1838 Account of The First Vision

LDS Standard Works In the spring of 1820 when he was fourteen years old, Smith reported he was reading the Bible when he came across the following verse in the first chapter of the Epistle of James:

James 1:5 - 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.

Smith felt deeply impressed by this particular scripture, believing he needed guidance in choosing the proper church to join.

One morning, he went into a grove of trees (called "the sacred grove" by Latter-day Saints) behind the family's farm, knelt down, and began his first vocal prayer.

Almost immediately after starting his prayer, Smith reported a confrontation with a power he regarded as evil, which completely inhibited his speech. A darkness gathered around him, and Smith believed that he would soon be totally destroyed. He continued his prayer non-verbally, asking for God's aid, feeling hopeless and resigned to destruction. At this moment, he reported that a light brighter than the sun descended towards him. With the arrival of the light, Smith reported he was delivered from the evil power.

In the light, Smith "saw two personages standing in the air" in front of him. One being pointed to the other and stated that this was his "Beloved Son." (Smith reported that the two beings were God the Father and Jesus.) As Smith again could speak, he asked to know which religious sect he should join. Smith claimed he was told that all existing religions had been corrupted from Jesus Christ's teachings. (See Great Apostasy.)

In the years following this First Vision, Smith claimed to have received more instructions from God, some of which were given through messengers such as angels. Eventually, Smith and five others incorporated what would become known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This account of Smith’s First Vision is available at this external link:[1]

Criticisms of the LDS Interpretation of the First Vision

Critics have noted that the 1838 account related above is but the final version of Smith's First Vision.

There are several earlier records of the First Vision (some of which were made second-hand). Smith participated in recording at least four accounts of the First Vision, the first of which was recorded in 1831 or 1832 (after the Church of Christ was officially organized in 1830). A detailed account was not published until the April 1, 1841 issue of The Times and Seasons, the church's official paper. [2]

Critics note that the accounts of the first vision are, in many respects, inconsistent. They note that Smith's earliest version of his experience states only that an angel visited him—rather than God the Father and Jesus Christ—and that the accounts grew increasingly elaborate and detailed.

Beyond inconsistencies in the recorded accounts of Smith's First Vision, critics note that:

  • Smith's name appears on a Methodist Sunday School roll in June of 1828. While not necessarily an indicator of membership, it was still a curious action for one who had been instructed by God and Jesus Christ that he should join no established denomination.
  • Joseph prayed to know "if a Supreme being did exist?" preceding his 1823 vision of Moroni.
  • There are contradictory differences between the "official" version and Smith's handwritten account recorded in 1832 (Allen contends that "No one should expect Joseph Smith, or anyone else, to repeat a verbatim account each time he tells it." [3])
  • Critics have argued that no widespread revival occurred in 1820 when Smith asserted; but apologists counter that discrepancies could be explained by Smith tailoring the account to different audiences, thereby highlighting different aspects of the vision. Additionally, they point to evidence that Smith called Jesus Christ an angel or a heavenly messenger.
  • Some church scholars have speculated that inconsistencies are due to second-hand retellings of the First Vision, which Smith kept to himself for some years before "officially" discussing the sacred event. Yet Smith said: "I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase ... I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true”.[4]
  • Non-LDS scholars such as Jan Shipps and others have stated that Smith may have not realized the First Vision was anything more than a personal manifestation and "forgiveness" of his sins until after the organization of the Church, and even as late as the dedication of the Kirtland Temple - in which some of the same items taught in his first vision were re-enforced by vision. Because of this, Smith may have seen the First Vision, his crystallomancy abilities via the seer stone and the call to translate the Book of Mormon and establish the Church as unconnected events until the Kirtland Temple period or later.
  • In retelling the key events of the Church's founding in his publication of the Church's history, Oliver Cowdery never mentions the First Vision. He also puts the religious revival that stirred Smith to question which church to join in 1823, after the death of Smith's brother Alvin, which occurred the same year.
  • The First Vision was not emphasized in sermons by Brigham Young and John Taylor. This implies that Smith did not stress it strongly during his life, and that many early church leaders had little understanding of its prominence; although, his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, included it in her history.
  • In recounting her own memories of the events, Lucy Mack Smith does not mention the First Vision. She talks about Smith being 14 but mentions nothing of signficance happening at that time. When the book was later published in the United States, it contained an account of the First Vision. The account, however, was not her own, but the official version from 1838 that the Church had adopted as canon. The publisher had inserted the account into the book with no disclosure.

The notion that Smith’s First Vision developed gradually is not exclusive to vitriolic anti-Mormons. Grant H. Palmer is a graduate of Brigham Young University’s American History program, and for many years he taught or managed the LDS church’s seminary and institute programs for the high school- and college-aged faithful. He argues there is plain, direct evidence—primarily Smith’s own writings—demonstrating that Smith’s First Vision evolved over several years, and that the “current LDS interpretations of Joseph’s first vision . . . simplify and retrofit later accounts to provide a seemingly authoritative, unambiguous recital.” (Palmer, 235)

In summary, Palmer writes, “It seems clear that the first vision narratives offered between 1832 and 1838 were expanded and became more miraculous . . . over time, spiritual events were retold in a way that was more literal, more physical, as if they occurred in the material rather than the metaphysical realm. This may have been a function of selective memory on the one hand and, more particularly in Joseph Smith’s case, a life lived as much in the invisible as in the temporal world.” (Palmer, 254) “Joseph added new elements to his later narratives that are not hinted at in his earlier ones. His first vision evolved from a forgiveness epiphany to a call from God the Father to and Jesus Christ to restore the true order of things.” (Palmer, 260)

Following the publication of his book An Insider's View of Mormon Origins in November 2002, Grant H. Palmer was disfellowshipped from the LDS Church on December 12, 2004. Apologists have rebutted some of Palmer's conclusions (see External links below). The details and circumstances of different versions of Smith's First Vision follow in the next section.

1830 Allusion

The first recorded allusion to a first vision separate from the purported appearance of Moroni was in the "Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ". These articles were first read to the church at a general conference on June 9, 1830 (Cowdery 1830), and published in a local newspaper in 1831 (Howe 1831). This account reads, "For, after that it truly was manifested unto the first elder [Smith] that he had received remission of his sins, he was entangled again in the vanities of the world, but after truly repenting, God visited him by an holy angel" (Howe 1831).

Following this brief allusion, we have several second-hand reports of an angel visiting Smith. One such reference was from a letter Smith’s mother Lucy wrote to her brother Solomon Mack in 1831: “Joseph . . . was visited by an holy Angel . . . and gave him the means of which . . . he should translate this book (the Book of Mormon)”. (Pyle, 256) None of these second-hand reports mention a visitation from Jesus or God the Father.

1832 Account

The first lengthy account of Smith’s vision dates from 1832, and Palmer reprints it in full. (Palmer, 236-237) It is the only version Smith recorded in his own handwriting. Smith writes that “from the age of twelve years to fifteen” he contemplated what he saw as the general poor state of mankind in regard to religion, and became “exceedingly distressed for I became convicted of my sins . . . by searching the scriptures I found that mankind did not come unto the Lord . . . and there was no society or denomination that build upon the gospel of Jesus.” (all spellings as in Smith’s original text) Smith goes on to write, “in the 16th year of my age . . . a pillar of light above the brightness of the sun at noon day” appeared above him. Smith writes that a single figure appeared to him: Jesus, who tells Smith, “thy sins are forgiven thee . . . behold and lo I come quickly.” Although no mention is specifically made of Smith seeing God the Father or of being charged with reestablishing Christ’s church, his account is not contradictory to such a claim.

In this early account, Smith himself dates the first vision some two years later than in the "official" account.

Palmer writes, “We might expect that after the church’s organization in early 1830, Joseph would cite the first vision as the source of his call, since it came directly from Jesus Christ. He does not. Even in his 1832 and 1835 narratives, he does not yet mention the appearance of God the Father, his divine commission to open the last dispensation, or his appointment as the prophet of the Restoration. These omissions are peculiar.” (Palmer, 240)

James B. Allen, who from 1972 held the official position of Assistant Church Historian in 1972, made a similar assertion, noting that no account of Smith’s miraculous First Vision was in general circulation before the 1840’s:

“According to Joseph Smith, he told the story of the vision immediately after it happened the early spring of 1820. As a result, he said, he received immediate criticism in the community. There is little if any evidence, however, that by the early 1830's Joseph Smith was telling the story 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 . . . The fact that none of the available contemporary writings about Joseph Smith in the 1830's, none of the publications of the Church in that decade, and no contemporary journal or correspondence yet discovered mentions the story of the first vision is convincing evidence that at best it received only limited circulation in those early days . . . as far as non-Mormons were concerned there was little, if any, awareness of it in the 1830's . . .
"As far as Mormon literature is concerned, there was apparently no reference to Joseph Smith's first vision in any published material in the 1830's . . . From all this it would appear that the general church membership did not receive information about the first vision until the 1840's and that the story certainly did not hold the prominent place in Mormon thought that it does today.”[5]

1834 Account

Late 1834 saw the publication of a vision account by Oliver Cowdery. It needs to be stressed that this account tells only of an angel having visited Smith. That would be consistent with the visitation from Moroni and what early Mormons believed to be Smith's First Vision, i.e., that the First Vision was, in fact, a visit from Moroni, the angel who steered Smith to the plates, and not from God and Jesus. Early Mormons, by some accounts, often thought the angel that appeared to Smith was Nephi, which further casts doubt on the widely held belief among Mormons that the First Vision, as documented in the Pearl of Great Price, was always a part of Mormonism's origins, as opposed to being invented later.[6]

1835 Account

Smith recorded an account in his diary in 1835. He wrote that in 1820, two personages appeared, but neither is specifically identified [7].

Smith also wrote the fifth of his Lectures on Faith in 1835, in which he teaches that God the Father is a spiritual presence, while Jesus Christ has a tangible body of flesh. This account essentially reiterates the Trinitarian beliefs of mainstream Christianity. The Lectures on Faith were canonized as scripture by the LDS Church and included as part of the Doctrine and Covenants for several decades, before being de-canonized. The following year after writing the fifth Lecture on Faith are the earliest recorded instances of Smith teaching that he had seen God and Jesus Christ as separate beings, each with his own tangible, physical body.

1838 Version

Smith offered a new version of the First Vision in 1838. Palmer argues that this is due to a leadership crisis.

Smith’s counselor Frederick G. Williams left the church in late 1837; shortly thereafter, Martin Harris and John Whitmer were excommunicated. These actions aggravated earlier tensions (especially the catastrophic insolvency of the church’s “anti-bank”, the Kirtland Safety Society), and soon there was open dissent and argument against Smith’s authority, and his claims regarding The Book of Mormon.

By late 1838 the following prominent Mormons had either left the church or been excommunicated: William E. McLellin, brothers Luke and Lyman Johnson, John F. Boynton, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Hyrum Page, Jacob Whitmer, Thomas B. Marsh, and Orson Hyde. McLellin, Boynton and Luke Johnson were fully a quarter of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

During this same time, Palmer reports that some 300 persons--perhaps fifteen percent of the church’s general membership--became disaffected as well and quit the church. (Palmer, 248) Palmer suggests that this extended crisis caused a degree of cognitive dissonance, and spurred Smith to reassert the validity of his leadership.

Palmer writes that on April 27, 1838, Smith began dictation of “a revised and more impressive version of his epiphany. He announced that his original calling had not come from an angel in 1823, as he had said for a decade, but from God the Father and Jesus in 1820.” (Palmer, 248-251)

“In 1838” continues Palmer, “Joseph’s memory was that he was the recipient of ‘severe’ persecution for having talked about his 1820 vision. This is inaccurate, according to the historical record. The persecution came from (Smith’s) talking about treasure digging and later, in 1827, about the Golden Plates. There is no evidence of prejudice resulting from his first vision.” (Palmer, 245) Palmer argues that if Smith’s charge that “all the sects ... united to persecute me” was accurate, this widespread persecution would have been evidenced in writings of Smith’s critics, in the writings of his supporters, or in the wealth of affidavits collected in 1833 by D.P. Hurlburt. But no one recalls this “severe” persecution Smith said occurred , “Not even his family remembers it,” a strong argument against its authenticity. (ibid)

A Chronology of Various First Vision Accounts

  • 1830, as mentioned vaguely in the "Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ" (later published in 1831).
  • 1832, as written by Joseph Smith; the first account in his own handwriting:[8]; vision is dated to 1821, and refers to seeing "the Lord".
  • 1834, as written by Oliver Cowdery, published in an official LDS periodical: [9] First Vision dated to 1823.
  • 1835, as written by Smith in his journal; First Vision dated to 1820 [10]; describes the appearance of two "personages" and many angels.
  • 1838, as written and/or dictated by Joseph Smith, officially unpublished until 1842; First Vision dated to 1820: [11]
  • 1840, as written by Orson Pratt, dating the first vision to when Smith was "about fourteen or fifteen years old" (Pratt 1840, p. 3)
  • 1842, in the Wentworth letter; referring to two identical unnamed "personages" appearing some time after the age of "about fourteen".
  • 1844, as approved by Smith, First Vision dated to 1820: [12]
  • 1852, as recounted by Erastus Holmes, who said he heard it from Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1832; First Vision dated to 1820:[13]
  • 1883, as related by Joseph Smith's brother, William, dating the vision to when Joseph was eighteen years old (when William would have been about 12), and referring to a single personage, presumably Moroni (Smith 1883; Smith 1884).
  • 1893, as related by Edward Stevenson in a memoir Stevenson published in Salt Lake City, Utah. Stevenson recounts Smith describing the First Vision to Stevenson in 1834, shortly before Stevenson's conversion and baptism into the Church. Stevenson's account relates Smith as having described God and Jesus Christ as being two separate, physical beings. Stevenson's memoir in 1893 is the earliest surviving record of Smith having taught prior to 1836 a version of the First Vision that included God and Jesus Christ as two separate, physical beings.

References

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