Monday, April 6, 2015

The First Vision of Joseph Smith--and Its Various Versions

Joseph Smith's First Vision, 1913, artist unknown, stained glass window

In Mormon folklore, today is the 195th anniversary of Joseph Smith experiencing what the Latter-day Saints know as the First Vision, the occasion when Joseph Smith received a visitation of the Father and the Son in response to Joseph’s first vocal prayer. (In reality, no one knows the precise date of the First Vision; Joseph Smith merely stated that it occurred “early in the spring” of 1820.)

The First Vision is crucial to the Latter-day Saint faith for several reasons:
  • It is the foundation of the claim that God commissioned the LDS Church because other Christian churches were not commissioned by the Lord, or had departed from His ways.
  • It is the foundation for the LDS sense of the Godhead as being composed of three separate Personages, rather than the three-in-one Persons of traditional Christianity.
  • It is the foundation for the LDS claim that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.

If the First Vision happened, in the way that Joseph Smith said it did, then the LDS Church is what it says it is: the Restored Church of the living God. If the First Vision did not happen—that is, if it were a fabrication, or some kind of hallucination or delusion, of Joseph Smith’s—then the LDS Church is an extremely well-meaning sham.

The stakes are high with the First Vision.

All the more important it is, then, to deal with the claims that some have made, to the effect that the existence of different versions of the First Vision, each differing from the others in certain details, suggests that Joseph Smith essentially made up the First Vision out of whole cloth.

I have studied this matter for some time, consulting such sources as Joseph Smith’s own writings, not only in the LDS Standard Works but in other collections, including some not published by the LDS Church at all. I have also studied the works of historians, such as Richard Bushman’s excellent, readable, and comprehensive biography, Joseph Smith—Rough Stone Rolling. And this is what I have concluded.

I simply do not see a problem here at all.

Sure, Joseph Smith states in one account that he met one Personage, and in another that he met two such Personages. Angels work into some accounts, and not others. As I have come to understand it, these are not mutually contradictory accounts, but simply reflect a different emphasis in what Joseph Smith wished to convey at different times.

It is important to understand, as Dr. Bushman points out, that the First Vision was not “the First Vision” to Joseph Smith: it was a deeply personal experience, the meaning of which changed for him as he matured. At first, what impressed him most was the forgiveness of his sins by Jesus. Later, as he came to bear the burdens of Church leadership, he came to put less emphasis on the meaning of the vision for his personal life, and more on what it meant for the Church and its message to the world.

Is this not a very human thing? In my own life, I have come to understand the significance of different events—struggles, successes, relationships, even the meaning of an entire marriage—differently, as I have matured and gained perspective. One should not expect this to be any different for Joseph Smith, who emphasized repeatedly that he was a man, and a prophet only when acting as such. If anything, to me, this maturing perspective argues for the reality of the First Vision, and the truth of Joseph Smith’s narratives thereof.

I would invite readers to peruse the different versions of the First Vision for themselves. There are links to them within an essay published on the Church’s website.

Of course, all that this blog entry does is deal with an objection to the First Vision. The real issue is, did it really happen? And for that, I suggest that readers do what Joseph Smith did, and what I did myself to learn of the truth of this experience: seek personal revelation through prayer.

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I discuss the growth of the Church of Jesus Christ in my book, The Rise of the Mormons, and I discuss another important issue in my book, Latter-day Saint Women and the Priesthood of God (both available here.)
  
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[The photo of the 1913 stained glass window, “Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” artist unknown, was obtained from the official LDS website. Being a reproduction of an artwork over a century old, it is in the public domain.]


Copyright 2015 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.