🤼 Contemporaries

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In some accounts of the First Vision, Joseph remarks that nobody believes his story. It's not clear to me how much effort he put into proliferating his experience—if he was met with resistance at every turn, that would diminish his drive to spread the word. I should expect some other folks to record what they heard Joseph say, even if it's with contempt. So what do Joseph's contemporaries have to say about the miraculous appearance?

 

Lucy Mack Smith

If anyone within Joseph Smith's family would know about seeing God in 1820, I would think that his mother Lucy Mack Smith would. If anyone who hears Joseph's story would believe it, I would think that his immediate family would be most agreeable to it.

So... what does his mother have to say about it?

 

Joseph, after repenting of his sins and humbling himself before God was visited by an holy Angel whose countenance was as lightning which inspired him from on high. and gave unto him [power] by the means of which was before prepared, that he should translate this book, and by reading this our eyes are opened that we can see the situation in which the world now stands that the eyes of the whole world are blinded, that the churches have all become corrupted, yea every church upon the face of the earth that the Gospel of Christ is no where preached. ... God seeing our situation had compassion upon us and has sent us this revelation that the stumbling block might be removed, that whosoever would might enter. He has now established his church upon the earth as it was in the days of the Apostles.

— Lucy Mack Smith letter, Waterloo, New York to Solomon Mack, Gilsum, New Hampshire, 1831 January 6

See page 6 for typescript

 

You'll notice that 1831 is right before Joseph wrote down about his experience—with his own scribeless hands, no less. The context for this letter, as I see it, is Lucy testifying to her brother Solomon Mack about the forthcoming of the Book of Mormon.

I can concede that Joseph report numerous angelic visitations, even some surrounding the process of obtaining the Book of Mormon's source material. I don't recall the angel Nephi and/or Moroni granting Joseph power to translate, nor that the book proves that the world is in apostasy, all churches are corrupt, and that Christ's gospel will be restored. Those events sound like what Joseph said were part of (some accounts of) the First Vision. ... I would think that if Joseph told Lucy that he had seen God, Lucy might mention that? It really looks to me like she's talking about the First Vision, but associating that with an unnamed angelic visitor rather than, you know, God.

 

Early Church Leaders

Something that really should be evident as you read these quotes is that not one of them describe how, you know, God and Jesus both physically appeared to Joseph which incited the restoration of the gospel. You'd think that would be a detail they don't want to omit, but here we are.

 

The Lord did not come with the armies of heaven, in power and great glory, nor send His messengers panoplied with aught else than the truth of heaven, to communicate to the meek, the lowly, the youth of humble origin, the sincere enquirer after the knowledge of God. But He did send His angel to this same obscure person, Joseph Smith jun., who afterwards became a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, and informed him that he should not join any of the religious sects of the day, for they were all wrong; that they were following the precepts of men instead of the Lord Jesus; that He had a work for him to perform, inasmuch as he should prove faithful before Him.

— Brigham Young, 1855; Journal of Discourses 2:171

 

Do you suppose that God in person called upon Joseph Smith, our Prophet? God called upon him; but God did not come himself and call, but he sent Peter to do it. Do you not see? He sent Peter and sent Moroni to Joseph, and told him that he had got the plates. Did God come himself? No: he sent Moroni and told him there was a record, and says he, “That record is matter that pertains to the Lamanites, and it tells when their fathers came out of Jerusalem, and how they came, and all about it;”

— Heber C. Kimball, 1857; Journal of Discourses 6:29

 

We are the people of God; we are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the foundation of which, in these last days, was begun by the Almighty sending an holy angel to Joseph Smith to reveal to him his will and establish the everlasting Gospel that was preached in the days of Jesus[.] . . .

— Heber C. Kimball, 1854; Journal of Discourses 7:18

 

Gospel of Jesus Christ which has been revealed in our day, by the administering of holy angels, in all its fulness, beauty, power, and glory.

That same organization and Gospel that Christ died for, and the Apostles spilled their blood to vindicate, is again established in this generation. How did it come? By the ministering of an holy angel from God, out of heaven, who held converse with man…

The angel taught Joseph Smith those principles which are necessary for the salvation of the world;

Wherever the words of the Gospel, which the angel revealed to him, were preached among the children of men, it had its effect.

— Wilford Woodruff, 1855; Journal of Discourses 2:191 (isolated excerpts; see document for fuller context)

 

[Joseph Smith] had read the Bible and had found that passage in James which says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not,” and taking this literally, he went humbly before the Lord and inquired of Him, and the Lord answered his prayer, and revealed to Joseph, by the ministration of angels, the true condition of the religious world. When the holy angel appeared, Joseph inquired which of all these denominations was right and which he should join, and was told they were all wrong—they had all gone astray, transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances and broken the everlasting covenant, and that the Lord was about to restore the priesthood and establish His Church, which would be the only true and living Church on the face of the whole earth.

— George Albert Smith, 1868; Journal of Discourses 12:334

 

I've provided links to the source documents, and feel that the given excerpts speak for themselves. Tell me if there's some kind of context that I'm missing, because it sure sounds to me like these figureheads don't believe that God and Jesus both physically appeared to Joseph.

 

Richard Bushman

According the Richard Bushman, practically no one had heard of the First Vision before 1839.

 

So far as we know the 1832 account was never read in a church meeting. It was buried away in church records until discovered by a historian in the 1960s.

This withholding of the 1832 account was typical of the first decade of the Church. Very little was made of the First Vision in Church teachings until 1839 when for the first time the story of the vision appeared in print, in an account by Orson Pratt. The familiar 1838 account was not published until 1842. Joseph mentioned his experience to a visitor to Kirtland in 1835, but did not tell the story in any sermon we know about. Likely no more than a handful of Latter-day Saints had even heard of the First Vision before 1839.

Its notable absence from Church writings until 1839 is quite surprising. Parley Pratt published the most influential early Mormon tract, The Voice of Warning, in 1837. It summed up the Mormon message at that time without mentioning Joseph Smith’s name, much less his First Vision. Pratt emphasized the return of revelation without seeing a need to name the revelator, or describe the vision that launched the Restoration.

This puzzling absence moves us to ask: What was the message in that first decade? If Joseph Smith was not seeking to promote himself as a prophet, what was he promoting? What was the message if not a new prophet?

— What Can We Learn From the First Vision, Richard Bushman, Devotional at BYU Hawaii, 2016

 

It would be absurd for Bushman to bring up this question and not answer it, and since he's a proper, educated fellow, he does provide some answers. You will not (should not) be surprised to find that the answer is "pray about it until you get warm fuzzy feelings." To me, it still sounds like there were no records for nineteen years, and Joseph decided to retrofit this experience to make his divine authenticity more convincing.

 

"This withholding of the 1832 account was typical of the first decade of the Church" is a direct quote. I don't know how much more belaboring this point needs, but the First Vision is kind of a big deal. Withholding it for nineteen years is also a big deal. If it wasn't important, it didn't involve God. If it didn't involve God, it wasn't a restoration. If it wasn't a restoration, why is anyone joining this church?

 

Improvement Era

The earliest point that I can find of the LDS church publishing a commentary on the First Vision account discrepancies is in the April 1970 issue of the Improvement Era, specifically in an article titled Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision - What Do We Learn from Them? by Dr. James B. Allen. I'll share a few selections, but I'll advise you to follow the provided links to read through it yourself:

• Church History Catalog; churchofjesuschrist.org
• Scripture Central; (direct link to PDF)
• archive.org

 

Apparently Joseph Smith did not relate his First Vision very widely during the early years of Church history, for neither Mormon nor non-Mormon publications of the 1830s carried accounts of it. Although contemporary literature included several allusions to the idea that Joseph had beheld Deity, none of these brief references gave details of the vision. Because of the absence of the vision from early publications, one hostile writer suggested in 1945 that Joseph Smith did not even “make up” the story until 1835 or later.

Follow the footnote on that "hostile writer" and we're led to Fawn Brodie's book, No Man Knows My History. Criticism is persecution and hostility, I guess. Stay classy, Mormonism!

 

One would hardly expect to find every account to be precisely alike, but it is fortunate that these eight reports come from a wide variety of circumstances, thus accentuating the significance of the consistency that does exist.

Actually, the differences between the accounts may be grossly overemphasized, for the truth is that there is wide and general agreement in detail among all of them. Another impressive fact is that the 1831-32 version, which was the first to be recorded, is actually the most comprehensive of all.

Are we talking about the same document? The 1832 account that I read was the shortest, sparsest, and least consistent across all others that I encountered. If, according to this article by Dr. Allen, the 1832 account "is actually the most comprehensive of all," why are we not using it?

 

His use of the word “about” indicates that the validity of his history did not hinge on a precise date, and it is significant to note that both Orson Pratt and Orson Hyde merely wrote that he was “somewhere about fourteen or fifteen” when his spiritual awakening began.

Okay but what about Joseph's first-hand accounts of being vague and non-specific about how old he was? This has nothing to do with either of those Orsons. The other accounts that I examined were all first-hand retellings via scribe.

 

Was it one personage or two? All accounts of the First Vision but one specify that two heavenly personages appeared to young Joseph, and three (Wentworth letter, Orson Pratt, and Orson Hyde) state that these personages exactly resembled each other. There is no doubt that the Prophet intended to convey the message that they were the Father and the Son.

...

While the other narratives do not describe the event just that way, nothing in them precludes the possibility that he may have seen one personage first, and then the other.

ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ sʜɪᴛᴛɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ

We're going to rationalize Joseph's handwritten account listing only one personage with "he saw one and then the other"?

 

We believe that Joseph Smith was telling the truth each time he related his experience, and that the scribes recorded his ideas as accurately as possible.

It was the scribe's fault! I bet we didn't see that one coming.

 

The messages and information received by Joseph as the vision progressed were all that a boy with his concerns could ask for, and more.

What information? "Don't join a church"?

 

There is no contemporary evidence (i.e., documents from the 1820s) to show that Joseph Smith told his story very widely in 1820; and it is not clear, even from his own accounts, how long he continued to tell it. With the reception he apparently received, it was probably not very long.

ugh

There's no contemporary evidence of Joseph saying anything at all about it for twelve years. Don't frame it as "it just wasn't told widely." That's true but misleading. He told zero people about it.

 

Dr. Allen's Table

Here's what drew me into this article to begin with: a tabular comparison of First Vision accounts!

Here's a screenshot of the table as presented in the Improvement Era. I'll try to recreate it here digitally as to avoid an image for reference. Please remember that this is the work of Dr. James B Allen, not mine:

	1831-32	1835	1838-39	Pratt	Hyde	Wentworth	Spectator	Neibaur
Religious excitement of the period			✅					✅
Joseph's concern for his soul (or future state)	✅			✅	✅	✅		✅
Disillusionment with various denominations	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Joseph's concern for mankind in general	✅
His quest for forgiveness of sin	✅
His quest to know which church (if any) was right	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
His searching the scriptures	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
His prayer	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
The strange force of opposition		✅	✅	✅	✅			✅
Appearance of the light	✅	✅	✅	✅			✅	✅
Appearance of Deity	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
(Two personages)		✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
The message: 1. Forgiveness of sins	✅	✅		✅
2. Testimony of Jesus	✅	✅	✅				✅
3. Join no church (all were wrong)	✅		✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
4. Gospel to be restored				✅	✅	✅
Joseph filled with love	✅
Unsuccessful effort to get others to believe the story	✅		✅					✅

 

I personally, subjectively, will argue that some of these data points are worthless. Maybe my standards in 2025 are different than de facto standards of 1970. The first row, for example, outlines which accounts describe "religious excitement." Does the collective religious excitement of upstate New York have any real bearing on whether or not Joseph was visited by God, calling him to restore the true church?

Does an account's mention of Joseph reading scriptures lend to its credibility? Does it have any bearing on God the Father and Jesus Christ appearing to restore the one true church? If a table has a boolean TRUE on every single column, then why is it even included? If you're trying to make a visually striking graph, then sure, add extraneous information. You could just as meaningfully have a field for "Joseph was feeling indigestion" or "had encountered nine hippopotamuses" with all columns indicating FALSE. Without any differentiation, why would it be included?

He... he prayed? Holy shit, I had no idea. Good thing this table outlines an affirmative for Joseph Smith's First Prayer including a prayer in every single given account. Pack it up, fellas—all the accounts are consistent. Time to get back to church.

 

One of Dr. Allen's points as quoted above is that the 1832 account is "the most comprehensive of all". I suppose that using it as a reference point does show corroboration with the other accounts, in that "Joseph read scriptures and prayed." Those two factors would not convince anyone that he has been called to be a prophet.

Per my stint at the Provo UT Missionary Training Center, and the insistence of my mission president(s), people need to know that Joseph was a prophet, and hearing God appearing to him to call him as such is what will invite the Spirit to testify accordingly. What factors on the above table lend credibility to this claim?

Anyone can pray for forgiveness of sins. That is not unusual. Having a supernatural opposition inhibit verbal speech is unusual, but not indicative of priesthood authority. Having deity appear was not exclusive to Joseph. Hearing a divine figure testify of Jesus doesn't really impact a prophetic office. Failing to convince others of veracity certainly doesn't mean anything (unless you're Ezra Benson in 1979.)

 

The "Mormonism" factors in "the most comprehensive of all" are absent:

1. Two distinct personages
2. The Gospel will be restored

Every other row in that table in ancillary.

 

I included this mention of the Improvement Era with the intention of drawing attention to the church acknowledging multiple accounts and their discrepancies as early as 1970, but ended up making myself angry in the process.

 

Find related reading material on the main page for the first vision.

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