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First Vision

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For the Mariah Carey DVD, see The First Vision.
Stained glass depiction of the first vision of Joseph Smith, Jr., completed in 1913 by an unknown artist (Museum of Church History and Art).

LDS Standard Works

The First Vision is the name given by Latter Day Saints to an event that Joseph Smith, Jr. said he experienced during the early 1820s in a forested area (now called the Sacred Grove) near his home in northwestern New York. In Smith's first account of this experience, he said that he saw Jesus, who told him that his sins were forgiven, that men "had turned aside from the Gospel," and that He was soon returning to earth. In later accounts, Smith said that he had seen angels and/or two heavenly beings, Jesus and a second unnamed "personage"--presumably God the Father, since He pointed to Jesus and said, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." In the last, but first published, account of the experience, Jesus also told Smith that all contemporary Christian churches were corrupt. Smith did not write down an account of the First Vision until 1832, and his 1838 account, considered canonical by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not published until 1842. During the late 19th century, the First Vision evolved into a significant element of Latter Day Saint theology. Many modern adherents of the religion view the First Vision as the beginning of the Latter Day Saint restoration.

Historical context

Earlier Smith family visions

Like many other Americans at the turn of the nineteenth century, the Smith family easily accepted visions and theophanies. [1] In 1811, Smith's maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack, described a series of visions and voices from God that resulted in his conversion to orthodox Christianity at the age of seventy-six. [2] Before Joseph was born, his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, prayed in a grove about her husband's repudiation of evangelical religion.[3] That night she had a vision in her sleep, which she interpreted as a prophecy that Joseph, Sr. would later accept the "pure and undefiled Gospel of the Son of God." [4]

Between 1811 and 1819, Joseph Smith, Sr. himself reported seven visions, [5] which, according to Lucy, came when he was "much excited upon the subject of religion." They confirmed to Smith, Sr. the correctness of his refusal to join any organized religious group but led him to believe that he would be properly guided to his own salvation.[6]

Revivalism in the Palmyra area

Smith's First Vision occurred during the Second Great Awakening, a period of intense religious excitement especially in an area of northern and western New York later called the Burned-over district.[7] During Smith's adolescence, the area around Palmyra and Manchester, New York experienced a major revival in 1824-25. But in the intervening years there were periods of religious interest in nearby areas, some of which may have reported in local papers that were read by the Smith family. [8]One late nineteenth-century account from Lyons, New York, said that prior to 1823, there had been "various religious awakenings in the neighborhood." [9]Methodists regularly held camp meetings "away down in the woods, on the Vienna road," where Smith himself served as an exhorter. [10] There was definitely a Methodist camp meeting in the Palmyra area in June 1820.[11]

During this period of revival, Joseph Smith's mother and three of his siblings joined Palmyra's Western Presbyterian Church, and Smith himself was attracted to Methodism.[12] Lucy Mack Smith said she joined the church after the death of her son Alvin in November 1823.[13]

Late in life Joseph Smith's brother William said that Joseph's First Vision was encouraged in part by the advice given Joseph by a minister[14], who referred Smith to the Epistle of James 1:5, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." William also said that the next day (September 22 1823) an angel promised to show Joseph hidden plates on which was "an account of the inhabitants who formerly resided upon this continent."[15]

Date of the First Vision

An engraving of a Methodist camp meeting in 1819 (Library of Congress)

Smith said that the First Vision occurred in the early 1820s when he was in his early teens. In 1832, when Joseph wrote the first account of the event in his own handwriting, he said that it had occurred 1821. [16] Later Smith said he was "a little over fourteen years of age," [17] which would have put the vision in 1820. Smith's brother William dated the vision to 1823.[18]

William also said that Joseph's vision came soon after the Rev. George Lane had visited the "neighborhood" in 1822 and 1823, which he "very much stirred up with regard to religious matters" by his preaching.[19] There is no record that Lane visited Palmyra until he helped lead the major revival of 1824-25--which occurred after Joseph's vision of Moroni in 1823. However, Lane did visit the town of Vienna, 15 miles from Palmyra, in 1819 for a Methodist conference.[20] Joseph and his family might have traveled to Phelps to sell concessions from their "cake and beer shop" at this event, as they did for others in the Palmyra vicinity, but there is no record that they did so.[21]

Accounts of the First Vision

There is no evidence that Smith told anyone about his vision prior to 1832. Joseph said that after receiving the vision, he told his mother that he had "learned for [him]self that Presbyterianism is not true,"[22] although Lucy did not mention this conversation in her own history.[23] He also said that he had mentioned the vision to "one of the Methodist preachers, who was very active in the before-mentioned religious excitement".[24] Many have presumed this to be the Rev. George Lane, the methodist Presiding Elder referred to by William Smith as having "stirred up" the Palmyra neighborhood prior to the First Vision.[25] Smith also said that the telling of his vision story "excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase"; but there is no contemporary record of this persecution, except for local opposition to his treasure hunting activities in the mid-1820s, and then again after 1827, when he said he had discovered a set of Golden Plates. [26] In 1883, Joseph's brother William said that Joseph told the entire Smith family about a vision the day after it occurred in 1823, but William obviously conflated the First Vision with the vision of Moroni, which Joseph himself dated three and a half years later.[27]

Two late witnesses corroborated Smith's claim that by the mid-1820s he believed all contemporary churches false. Pomeroy Tucker, an acquaintance of Smith's from the mid-1820s, reported that Smith had withdrawn from a Methodist probationary class after announcing that he believed "all sectarianism was fallacious, and the churches on a false foundation".[28] According to another late recollection, Smith "arose and announced that his mission was to restore the true priesthood. He appointed a number of meetings, but no one seemed inclined to follow him as the leader of a new religion".[29] During the revivals of 1824-1825 (when Lane was preaching in the area), Smith supposedly refused to attend religious services because, according to his mother, "I can take my Bible, and go into the woods, and learn more in two hours, than you can learn at meeting in two years, if you should go all the time."[30] On the other hand, in Smith's 1839 history, he said that during the period of religious excitment, he had attended meetings of the various denominations "as often as occasion would permit."[31]In 1828, after the stillbirth of his first son, he once again briefly joined a Methodist class in Harmony Township, Pennsylvania.[32]

Possible 1830 allusion

The first possible mention of the First Vision occurs in the Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ, written in June 1830[33] and first published in 1831.[34] In describing the beginnings of Smith's Church of Christ, the document says:

For, after that it truly was manifested unto the first elder 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 . . . and gave unto him power, by the means which was before prepared that he should translate a book"[35]

The reference to "remission of sins" has been interpreted as an allusion to the First Vision, but if so, it lacks mention of Jesus, God the Father, or of the corruption of all contemporary churches—an unusual omission because it might be expected that Smith would cite the source of his call since it came directly from Jesus Christ.[36] Furthermore, in October 1830, when Smith was interviewed by the author of a brief religious history,[37] Smith told him only of an angel who had revealed Golden Plates, and the author noted that Smith "could give me no christian experience".[38]

Joseph Smith's 1832 account

The earliest account of the First Vision was written in 1832 in Smith's own handwriting:

[T]he Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in <the> attitude of calling upon the Lord <in the 16th year of my age> a piller of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph <my son> thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy <way> walk in my statutes and keep my commandments behold I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life <behold> the world lieth in sin and at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned aside from the gospel and keep not <my> commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them acording to th[e]ir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which <hath> been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud <clothed> in the glory of my Father . . . ."[39]

Unlike later versions of the vision, the 1832 account does not mention an appearance of God the Father, nor does it mention the phrase "This is my beloved Son, hear him." The text also does not say that Jesus condemned contemporary Christian churches as corrupt but rather says that Smith discovered their falsity through his own study of the Bible.[40]

1834 Account by Oliver Cowdery

In two issues of the LDS periodical Messenger and Advocate (1834-35), Oliver Cowdery (who claimed to have had the assistance of Joseph Smith) published a version that seems to blend the First Vision with the angel Moroni's revelation concerning the ancient text of the Book of Mormon. Cowdery wrote that in 1823, the sixteen-year-old Joseph Smith had been stirred by a local revival and desired to know whether “a Supreme being did exist” and also to know which of the competing denominations was the correct one. While in his bedroom (rather than a grove), Smith had a vision of an angel, who assured him that the Lord would do a work through him and who revealed the existence of sacred gold plates. Cowdery's account does not mention an appearance of God or Jesus or any reference to Smith being persecuted for repeating the story of the vision.[41]

Joseph Smith's 1835 Account

On November 9, 1835, Smith recorded an account of the First Vision in his diary (Warren Parish, scribe) that mentioned a vision of two unidentified personages and "many angels" when he was "about 14 years old." Jesus is identified as the Son of God, but neither "personage" is identified with Him. There is no mention of all churches being condemned as corrupt. Smith also noted that he had had another vision in his bedroom when he was 17.[42]

Joseph Smith's 1838 Account

Summary of the 1838 Account

In 1838, Joseph Smith said that eighteen years previous, in the spring of 1820, during a period of "confusion and strife among the different denominations" following a religious revival, he had debated which of the various Christian groups he should join. While in turmoil, he read from the Bible: "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."[43]

Deeply impressed by this scripture, the fourteen-year-old Smith one morning went to a grove of trees behind the family farm, knelt, and began his first vocal prayer. Almost immediately he was confronted by an evil power that prevented speech. A darkness gathered around him, and Smith believed that he would be destroyed. He continued the prayer silently, asking for God's assistance though still resigned to destruction. At this moment a light brighter than the sun descended towards him, and he was delivered from the evil power.

In the light, Smith "saw two personages standing in the air" before him, whom Smith identified as God the Father and Jesus Christ. (One pointed to the other and declared Him to be his "Beloved Son.") Once Smith could speak again, he asked which religious sect he should join. Smith was told to join none of them, that all existing religions had corrupted the teachings of Jesus Christ.[44]

Historical problems with the 1838 Account

Certain historical problems cast doubt on the accuracy of the 1838 account. First, Joseph Smith became involved with at least two Methodist churches between 1820 and 1830. He served as a Methodist exhorter[45] in the Palmyra area early in the period, and then after the stillbirth of his first son in 1828, he briefly joined a Methodist class in Harmony, Pennsylvania. While he almost certainly never became a member of either church, associating himself with the Methodists was curious behavior for one who had been instructed by God not to join any established denomination eight years previous.[46]

In the 1838 account Joseph claims that it had never entered into his heart "that the existing churches were all wrong," but according to the 1832 account in his own handwriting, he had already concluded from reading the Bible that all churches were wrong.[47] Then too, in recounting her own memories of events that led to the founding of the LDS Church, Lucy Mack Smith, did not mention the First Vision, but instead reflected on Joseph's bedroom vision from Moroni in 1823.[48]

Finally, Joseph Smith had a motive for changing his story in 1838, a period of crisis within the church. Many early leaders had left the church in 1838, and there was open dissent against Smith's leadership. A quarter of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and some 300 members — perhaps fifteen percent of the total membership —had left the church. To declare that his original call had come from God the Father and Jesus Christ rather than an angel would have strengthened Smith's leadership role — and in fact, it did so.[49]

Orson Pratt's 1840 account

An 1840 missionary tract stated that after Smith saw the light, "his mind was caught away, from the natural objects with which he was surrounded; and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision." [50]

Joseph Smith's 1842 Wentworth letter

Two years before his assassination in 1842, Joseph Smith, Jr. wrote a letter to John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat. Smith outlined the basic beliefs of the Latter Day Saint movement and included an account of the First Vision.[51] Here Smith said that he was "about fourteen years of age" when he had the First Vision.[52]. Like the Orson Pratt account, Smith's Wentworth letter said that his "mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision."[53] Smith "saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features, and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noon-day".[54] Smith said he was told that no religious denomination "was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom" and that he was "expressly commanded to 'go not after them'".[55]

William Smith's 1883 and 1884 accounts

Late in his life, Smith's brother William gave two accounts of the First Vision, dating it to 1823,[56] when William was twelve years old. William said the religious excitement in Palmyra had occurred in 1822-23 (rather than the actual date of 1824-25), that it was stimulated by the preaching of a Methodist, the Rev. George Lane, a "great revival preacher," and that his mother and some of his siblings had then joined the Presbyterian church.[57]

William Smith said he based his account on what Joseph had told William and the rest of his family the day after the First Vision[58]:

[A] light appeared in the heavens, and descended until it rested upon the trees where he was. It appeared like fire. But to his great astonishment, did not burn the trees. An angel then appeared to him and conversed with him upon many things. He told him that none of the sects were right; but that if he was faithful in keeping the commandments he should receive, the true way should be made known to him; that his sins were forgiven, etc.[59]

In an 1884 account, William also stated that when Joseph first saw the light above the trees in the grove, he fell unconscious for an undetermined amount of time, after which he awoke and heard "the personage whom he saw" speak to him.[60] William's account describes only the visit of an angel—not Jesus or God the Father—and neither of William's accounts makes a distinction between the First Vision and the vision of Moroni Smith said he experienced three and a half years later.

Use of the First Vision by LDS Churches

There is no reference to the 1838 canonical First Vision story in any published material from the 1830s. Neither was the First Vision emphasized in the sermons of Smith's immediate successors Brigham Young and John Taylor. Hugh Nibley noted that although a "favorite theme of Brigham Young's was the tangible, personal nature of God," he "never illustrates [the theme] by any mention of the first vision."[61] Taylor's comments on the First Vision shift from emphasizing angels to God the Father and Jesus Christ.[62]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has canonized Smith's 1838 version of the Vision. [63]The current president of the LDS Church, Gordon B. Hinckley, has declared, "Our entire case as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests on the validity of this glorious First Vision. ... Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration."[64]

Notes

  1. ^ (Quinn 1998)
  2. ^ "About midnight I saw a light about a foot from my face as bright as fire; the doors were all shut and no one stirring in the house. I thought by this that I had but a few moments to live, and oh what distress I was in....Another night soon after, I saw another light as bright as the first, at a small distance from my face, and I thought I had but a few moments to live. And not sleeping nights and reading, all day I was in misery; well you may think I was in distress, soul and body. At another time in the dead of the night I was called by my christian name; I arise up to answer to my name. The doors all being shut and the house still, I thought the Lord called, and I had but a moment to live."(Mack 1811, p. 25)
  3. ^ Bushman, 26.
  4. ^ (Smith 1853, pp. 55–56)(Quinn 1998)
  5. ^ (Smith 1853, pp. 56, 58–59, 70–72, 74)
  6. ^ Joseph Smith, Sr.'s second vision as reported by Lucy Mack Smith exhibits many similarities to a dream given in the early chapters of the Book of Mormon. Bushman, 36.
  7. ^ "Wave after wave of diverse religious excitments made New York State notoriously 'burned-over.'" Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 477n.; see Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950).
  8. ^ (Turner 1851, p. 214).
  9. ^ (Mather 1880, pp. 198–199)
  10. ^ (Turner 1851, p. 214)
  11. ^ (Backman 1969, p. 309)
  12. ^ Lua error: Book <js_h> not found in Standard Works..
  13. ^ "About this time their was a great revival in religion and the whole neighborhood was very much aroused to the subject and we among the rest flocked to the meeting house to see if their was a word of comfort for us...." Lucy Smith, "Preliminary Manuscript" LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah in Vogel, I, 306.
  14. ^ William seems to have called the minister "Mr. Lane" in one account and "Rev. M__" in another.(Smith 1884)
  15. ^ (Smith 1883); (Joseph Smith History 1:11-13)[1].
  16. ^ (Smith 1832, p. 3)
  17. ^ (Roberts 1902, vol. 1, ch. 1, p. 7)
  18. ^ (Smith 1883, pp. 6, 7–8)
  19. ^ (Smith 1883, p. 6)
  20. ^ (Porter 1969, p. 330)
  21. ^ (Anderson 1969, p. 7)
  22. ^ (Roberts 1902, vol. 1, ch. 1, p. 5)
  23. ^ (Smith 1853, p. 77)
  24. ^ (Roberts 1902, vol. 1, ch. 1, p. 6)
  25. ^ (Smith 1883, p. 6).
  26. ^ (Roberts 1902, vol. 1, ch. 1, p. 6)
  27. ^ (Smith 1883, p. 9).
  28. ^ (Tucker 1876, p. 18)
  29. ^ (Mather 1880, p. 199)
  30. ^ (Smith 1853, p. 90).
  31. ^ Vogel, I, 59.
  32. ^ (Lewis & Lewis 1879; McKune 1879).
  33. ^ (Phelps 1833, p. 47)
  34. ^ (Howe 1831)
  35. ^ (Howe 1831)
  36. ^ Palmer, 240.
  37. ^ (Bauder 1834, pp. 36–38)
  38. ^ (Bauder 1834, pp. 36–38)
  39. ^ (Smith 1832, p. 2). Angle brackets indicate insertions by Smith.
  40. ^ Palmer, 236-237; the 1832 account. It has also been noted that in September 1832, Joseph Smith revealed that before the reinstitution of the priesthood no man could see God and live. This revelation was canonized as (Doctrine & Covenants 84:21–22): (21) And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; (22) For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live.
  41. ^ Abanes, 26; the 1834-35 account. See the full text of the of the Messenger and Advocate December 1834, page 42 and January 1835, pages 78-79. Obviously, if the First Vision had occurred in 1820, Smith would have known that a supreme being existed in 1823. A minor discrepancy is that Smith would have been seventeen in 1823.
  42. ^ Abanes, 16; the 1835 account. In 1835, Smith approved the Lectures on Faith, an orderly presentation of Mormonism (probably by Sidney Rigdon) in which it was taught that although Jesus Christ had a tangible body of flesh, God the Father was a spiritual presence--a view not out of harmony with orthodox Christian belief. The Lectures on Faith were canonized as scripture by the LDS Church and included as part of the Doctrine and Covenants until de-canonized after 1921. (Bushman, 283-84.)
  43. ^ James 1: 5; Joseph Smith's History, an account of his First Vision.
  44. ^ See Great Apostasy.
  45. ^ In that period, a Methodist "exhorter" followed the minister's sermon, urging the congregation to follow its teachings.
  46. ^ Bushman, 69-70. A childhood acquaintance of Smith's, Orsamus Turner (1801-1855), noted that "after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, [Joseph] was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings." in O. Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase (Rochester, New York: William Alling, 1851), in Vogel, III, 50. The Methodists did not acquire property on the Vienna Road until July 1821, so it is likely that Smith's first dabble with Methodism occurred during the 1824-25 revival in Palmyra.
  47. ^ ...from the age of twelve years to fifteen I pondered many things in my heart concerning the sittuation of the world of mankind the contentions and divisions the wickedness and abominations and the darkness which pervaded the minds of mankind my mind become excedingly distressed for I become convicted of my Sins and by Searching the Scriptures I found that mankind did not come unto the Lord but that they had apostatised from the true and liveing faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the new testament..." in Vogel, I, 28
  48. ^ Lucy Mack Smith notes that after the family's third wheat harvest in Palmyra/Manchester(1823), "we were sitting till quite late conversing upon the subject of the diversity of churches that had risen up in the world and the many thousands opinions in existence as to the truths contained in scripture. Joseph never said many words upon any subject but always seemed to reflect more deeply than common persons of his age upon everything of a religious nature. After we ceased conversation he went to bed and was pondering in his mind which of the churches were the true one but he had not laid there long till he saw a bright light enter the room where he lay he looked up and saw an angel of the Lord standing by him." Lucy Smith, "Preliminary Manuscript" LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah in Vogel, I, 289.
  49. ^ Palmer, 248-251
  50. ^ (Pratt 1840, p. 5)
  51. ^ (Smith 1842a, pp. 706–710).
  52. ^ (Smith 1842a, pp. 706)
  53. ^ (Smith 1842a, pp. 706)
  54. ^ (Smith 1842a, pp. 707)
  55. ^ (Smith 1842a, pp. 707)
  56. ^ (Smith 1883, pp. 6, 7–8)
  57. ^ (Smith 1883, p. 6)
  58. ^ Harv|Smith|1883|pp=6, 8–9}}
  59. ^ (Smith 1883, pp. 6, 8–9)
  60. ^ (Smith 1884)
  61. ^ Improvement Era (November 1961), 868
  62. ^ See Sandra Tanner, "Evolution of the First Vision and Teaching on God in Early Mormonism".James B. Allen, "The Significance of Joseph Smith's 'First Vision' in Mormon Thought," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 1 (Autumn 1966), 30-34.
  63. ^ Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith — History, 1:7-20
  64. ^ Ensign, November 1998, 70-71. In 1961 Hinckley went even further, "I would like to say that this cause is either true or false. Either this is the kingdom of God, or it is a sham and a delusion. Either Joseph Smith talked with the Father and the Son or he did not. If he did not, we are engaged in a blasphemy."Improvement Era (December 1961), 907.

References

Further reading

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