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How people have responded to the First Vision

Acceptance of the First Vision

The importance of the First Vision within the Latter Day Saint movement evolved over time. Early adherents were unaware of the details of the vision until 1840, when the earliest accounts were published in Great Britain. An account of the First Vision was not published in the United States until 1842, shortly before Joseph Smith's death. Jan Shipps has written that the vision was "practically unknown" until an account of it written in 1838 was published in 1840.[1]

The canonical First Vision story was not 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."[2] John Taylor gave a complete account of the First Vision story in an 1850 letter written as he began missionary work in France,[3] and he may have alluded to it in a discourse given in 1859.[4] However, when Taylor discussed the origins of Mormonism in 1863, he did so without alluding to the canonical First Vision story,[5] and in 1879, he referred to Joseph Smith having asked "the angel" which of the sects was correct.[6]

Three non-Mormon students of Mormonism, Douglas Davies, Kurt Widmer, and Jan Shipps agree that the LDS emphasis on the First Vision was a "'late development', only gaining an influential status in LDS self-reflection late in the nineteenth century." [7] Mormon historian James B. Allen also argues that the First Vision "did not figure prominently in any evangelistic endeavors by the Church until the 1880s."[8] The first important visual representation of the First Vision was painted by the Danish convert C. C. A. Christensen sometime between 1869 and 1878, and George Manwaring, inspired by the artist, wrote a hymn about the First Vision (later renamed "Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning") first published in 1884.[9]

Kurt Widner states that it was primarily through "the post 1883 sermons of LDS Apostle George Q. Cannon that the modern interpretation and significance of the First Vision in Mormonism began to take shape."[10] As the sympathetic but non-Mormon historian Jan Shipps has written, "When the first generation of leadership died off, leaving the community to be guided mainly by men who had not known Joseph, the First Vision emerged as a symbol that could keep the slain Mormon leader at center stage."[11] The centennial anniversary of the vision in 1920 "was a far cry from the almost total lack of reference to it just fifty years before."[12] By 1939, even George D. Pyper, an LDS Sunday School superintendent and manager of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, found it "surprising that none of the first song writers wrote intimately of the first vision."[13]

Beliefs about the First Vision

Fichier:Joseph F. Smith in the Sacred Grove.jpg
LDS President Joseph F. Smith in the Sacred Grove in 1905.

Most contemporary denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include the First Vision as part of their doctrine and history. However, they differ in their teachings about both the details and significance of the First Vision, and a few denominations reject it altogether.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has canonized Smith's 1838 account of the First Vision within the book Joseph Smith—History in the Pearl of Great Price, and it is a foundational belief of the Church.[14] An official website of the Church calls the First Vision "the greatest event in world history since the birth, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."[15]

In 1998, Gordon B. Hinckley, then Church President and Prophet, 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. It was the parting of the curtain to open this, the dispensation of the fullness of times. Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life.[16]

In 1961 Hinckley went even further, "Either Joseph Smith talked with the Father and the Son or he did not. If he did not, we are engaged in a blasphemy."[17] Likewise, in a January 2007 interview conducted for the PBS documentary "The Mormons," Hinckley said of the First Vision, "[I]t's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world....That's our claim. That's where we stand, and that's where we fall, if we fall. But we don't. We just stand secure in that faith."[18]

According to the LDS church the vision teaches that God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate beings with glorified bodies of flesh and bone; that mankind was literally created in the image of God; that Satan is real but God infinitely greater; that God hears and answers prayer; that no other contemporary church had the fullness of Christ's gospel; and that revelation has not ceased. In the twenty-first century, the Vision features prominently in the Church's program of proselytism.[19]

Community of Christ

William B. Smith, a younger brother of Joseph Smith, Jr., and a key figure in the early Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, renamed Community of Christ in 2001) gave several accounts of the First Vision, although in 1883 he stated that a "more elaborate and accurate description of his vision" was to be found in Joseph Smith's own history[20]

The RLDS Church did not emphasize the First Vision during the nineteenth century.[21] In the early twentieth century, there was a revival of interest, and during most of the century, the First Vision was viewed as an essential element of the Restoration. In many cases, it was taught as the foundation and even the embodiment of the Restoration.[22] The Vision was also interpreted as a justification for the exclusive authority of the RLDS Church as the Church of Christ.[23]

In the mid- to late-twentieth century, writers within the RLDS church emphasized the First Vision as an illustration of the centrality of Jesus.[24] The church began taking a broader view of the Vision, and used it as an example of how God evolves the church over time through revelation and restoration.[25] There was less emphasis on the Great Apostasy and a growing belief that the First Vision itself was not necessarily identical with Joseph Smith's later reconstructions and interpretations of the vision, what one RLDS Church Historian has called "genuine historical sophistication."[26] In 1980, this Church Historian noted that he had "systematically brought to the attention" of hundreds of church members "the substantive differences in half a dozen accounts of the First Vision" and expressed his satisfaction that RLDS scholars, "deeply moved and augmented by the presence of the wondrously diverse and conflicting accounts of the First Vision," could "begin the exciting work of developing a mythology of Latter Day Saint beginnings."[27]

Today, the Community of Christ generally refers to the First Vision as the "grove experience" and takes a flexible view about its historicity,[28] emphasizing the healing presence of God and the forgiving mercy of Jesus Christ felt by Joseph Smith.[29]

The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)

The Church of Jesus Christ, a Rigdonite branch with 15,000 members headquartered in Pennsylvania, has had an independent history from the Brighamite branches since the 1844 succession crisis. The church refers to the vision obliquely in a lengthy excerpt from Smith's 1838 account included in its official literature, in which the date "1820" and "a personage" (singular, not plural) are mentioned in paraphrases.[30]

Church of Christ (Temple Lot)

The Church of Christ (Temple Lot), a non-Brighamite branch with 5000 adherents, follows the David Whitmer tradition in rejecting many of Smith's post-1832 revelations[31]. Nevertheless, the church uses several elements of the 1838 account of the First Vision including Smith's desire to know which church he should join, his reading of James 1:5, his prayer in the grove, the appearance of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, the statement by Jesus Christ that all existing churches were corrupt, and the instruction that he should join none of them.[32]

Criticism of the First Vision

Alleged chronological problems

Writing of the revivals described in the 1838 First Vision story (which has been canonized by the LDS Church), Milton V. Backman, Jr., associate professor of history and religion at Brigham Young University said that although "the tools of the historian" could neither verify nor challenge the First Vision, "records of the past can be examined to determine the reliability of Joseph's description regarding the historical setting."[33] Grant Palmer and others claim that there are serious discrepancies between the various accounts, as well as anachronisms revealed by lack of contemporary corroboration.[34]

For instance, in his 1838 account, Smith said that when he shared his vision with a Methodist minister, the latter treated his "communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days." Smith said that he became the "subject of great persecution, which continued to increase."[35] But according to emeritus Brigham Young University history professor James B. Allen, there is no evidence beyond Smith's word that he ever mentioned his vision to a minister—or in fact, to anyone else—for years after the event is supposed to have occurred. Nor is there any evidence that the young Smith was persecuted for telling the First Vision story during the 1820s.[36]

Contradictions

In the 1832 account Smith said that by "Searching the Scriptures" he had concluded that "there was no society or denomination that built upon the Gospel of Christ".[37] In the 1838 account, he said that he was unable to determine which, if any, of the churches he studied were correct[38] and then that it had never entered into his heart that all churches were wrong.[39] FARMS, an informal group of Brigham Young University scholars,[40] does not dispute the difference between the accounts but argues that the "point of the 'official' version of Joseph Smith's story is that he received a revelation on the issue [, which does] not preclude the idea that he had already determined the answer and needed confirmation."[41]

According to Smith, he indirectly mentioned the vision to his mother shortly after it occurred.[42] In her several recollections of the events that led to the founding of the LDS Church, there is no extant record that Lucy Mack Smith ever mentioned Joseph having had a vision before his bedroom visitation from Moroni in 1823. Lucy also said that Joseph's vision of Moroni followed a family discussion about the "diversity of churches."[43]

Joseph Smith may have become involved with at least two Methodist churches between 1820 and 1830.[44] While he almost certainly never formally joined the Methodist church, he did associate himself with the Methodists eight years after he said he had been instructed by God not to join any established denomination.[45] In 1828, following the death of Smith's first-born son and the loss of 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript, Smith asked to be enrolled in a Methodist class in Harmony Township, Pennsylvania,[46] but a cousin of his wife "objected to the inclusion of a 'practicing necromancer' on the Methodist roll."[47]

Grant Palmer has noted that Joseph Smith had a clear motive for changing his story in 1838, a period of crisis within the Latter Day Saint Movement. At the time 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. Palmer argues that Smith "fearing the unraveling of the church," wrote a new "more impressive version of his epiphany" in which Smith claimed that his original call had come from God the Father and Jesus Christ rather than from an angel.[48]

Apologetic Responses

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have acknowledged that the differences in the accounts can be troublesome. Apostle Neal A. Maxwell wrote:

In our own time, Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the Book of Mormon constitute stumbling blocks for many—around which they cannot get—unless they are meek enough to examine all the evidence at hand, not being exclusionary as a result of accumulated attitudes in a secular society. Humbleness of mind is the initiator of expansiveness of mind."[49]

Some believers view differences in the accounts as overstated. Richard L. Anderson, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University wrote, "What are the main problems of interpreting so many accounts? The first problem is the interpreter. One person perceives harmony and interconnections while another overstates differences."[50]

Other believers view the differences in the accounts as reflective of Smith's increase in maturity and knowledge over time. In a recent PBS interview, Marlin K. Jensen, General authority and Church Historian said:

I've actually studied the various accounts of Joseph's First Vision, and I'm struck by the difference in his recountings. But as I look back at my missionary journals, for instance, which I've kept and other journals which I've kept throughout my life, I'm struck now in my older years by the evolution and hopefully the progression that's taken place in my own life and how differently now from this perspective I view some things that happened in my younger years.[51]

In another interview on the same PBS documentary, Richard Mouw, an evangelical theologian and student of Mormonism summarized his feelings about the First Vision in this way:

My instinct is to attribute a sincerity to Joseph Smith. And yet at the same time, as an evangelical Christian, I do not believe that the members of the godhead really appeared to him and told him that he should start on a mission of, among other things, denouncing the kinds of things that I believe as a Presbyterian. I can't believe that. And yet at the same time, I really don't believe that he was simply making up a story that he knew to be false in order to manipulate people and to gain power over a religious movement. And so I live with the mystery.[52]

  1. ↑ Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 30. The first extant account of the First Vision is the manuscript account in Joseph Smith, "Manuscript History of the Church" (1839); the first published account is Orson Pratt, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records (Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840); and the first American publication is Joseph Smith's letter to John Wentworth in Times and Seasons, 3 (March 1842), 706-08, only two years before Smith's assassination. (These accounts are available in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), volume 1.) As the LDS historian Richard Bushman has written in his authoritative biography, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), "At first, Joseph was reluctant to talk about his vision. Most early converts probably never heard about the 1820 vision." (39)
  2. ↑ Improvement Era (November 1961), 868.
  3. ↑ "[Joseph Smith] mind was troubled, he saw contention instead of peace; and division instead of union; and when he reflected upon the multifarious creeds and professions there were in existence, he thought it impossible for all to be right, and if God taught one, He did not teach the others, "for God is not the author of confusion." In reading his bible, he was remarkably struck with the passage in James, 1st chapter, 5th verse, "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." Believing in the word of God, he retired into a grove, and called upon the Lord to give him wisdom in relation to this matter. While he was thus engaged, he was surrounded by a brilliant light, and two glorious personages presented themselves before him, who exactly resembled each other in features, and who gave him information upon the subjects which had previously agitated his mind. He was given to understand that the churches were all of them in error in regard to many things; and he was commanded not to go after them; and he received a promise that the 'fulness' of the gospel should at some future time be unfolded unto him: after which the vision withdrew, leaving his mind in a state of calmness and peace." John Taylor, Letter to the Editor of the Interpreter Anglais et Français, Boulogne-sur-mer (25 June 1850).
  4. ↑ "What could the Lord do with such a pack of ignorant fools as we were? There was one man that had a little good sense, and a spark of faith in the promises of god and that was Joseph Smith-a backwoods man. He believed a certain portion of scripture which said-"If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God who to all men liberally and upbraideth not." He was fool enough in the eyes of the world, and wise enough in the eyes of God and angels, and all true intelligence to go into a secret place to ask God for wisdom, believing that God would hear him. The Lord did hear him, and told him what to do." Deseret News (Weekly), December 28, 1859, 337
  5. ↑ "How did this state of things called Mormonism originate? We read that an angel came down and revealed himself to Joseph Smith and manifested unto him in vision the true position of the world in a religious point of view. He was surrounded with light and glory while the heavenly messenger communicated these things unto him, after a series of visitations and communications from the Apostle Peter and others who held the authority of the holy Priesthood, not only on the earth formerly but in the heavens afterwards." Journal of Discourses 10: 123@ 127
  6. ↑ Journal of Discourses 20: 158 @ 167. For Mormon apologetic response see FairLDS.org
  7. ↑ "Historians have pondered the various phrases of this vision's evolution and tend to see its present form as a 'late development,' only gaining an influential status in LDS self-reflection late in the nineteenth century." Douglas J. Davies, An Introduction to Mormonism (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 136; Kurt Widner, Mormonism and the Nature of God: A Theological Evolution, 1833-1915 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 92-107; Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1985), 30-32. Nevertheless, LDS apologists assert that the doctrine played a significant part in new religion by the time of Smith's martyrdom www.fairwiki.org - historical timeline of First Vision presentation
  8. ↑ Allen, 43-69, summarized in Kurt Widner, Mormonism and the Nature of God: A Theological Evolution, 1833-1915 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 103.
  9. ↑ Allen (1980) , p. 53-54.
  10. ↑ Kurt Widner, Mormonism and the Nature of God: A Theological Evolution, 1833-1915 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 93; Journal of Discourses, 24: 340-41, 371-72. "The emergence of the First Vision is a syncretic approach to deal with past doctrinal inconsistencies on a broad scale. What it attempts to do is, in one giant sweep, gather all of the doctrinal inconsistencies, such as a plurality of Gods, God being an exalted man, the purpose of the Church, and the calling of Joseph Smith, and place it into an earlier time frame." Widner, 105.
  11. ↑ Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1985), 32.
  12. ↑ Allen (1980) , p. 57: "The Mutual Improvement Associations issued a special commemorative pamphlet, the vision was memorialized in music, verse and dramatic representations, and the church's official publication, the Improvement Era, devoted almost the entire April issue to that event."
  13. ↑ George D. Pyper, Stories of Latter-day Saint Hymns: Their Authors and Composers (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1939), 34. Pyper noted that Parley Pratt's earlier "An Angel from on High" and "Hark Ye Mortals" "referred to Cumorah and the Book of Mormon" rather than to the First Vision.
  14. ↑ Bitton (1994) , p. 86as quoted inAnderson (1996)
  15. ↑ http://www.josephsmith.net/portal/site/JosephSmith/menuitem.da0e1d4eb6d2d87f9c0a33b5f1e543a0/?vgnextoid=497679179acbff00VgnVCM1000001f5e340aRCRD JosephSmith.net, a website of the LDS Church.
  16. ↑ Gordon B. HinkleyNovember, (1998), "What Are People Asking about Us?", Ensign .
  17. ↑ Improvement Era (December 1961), 907. David O. McKay, the ninth president of the LDS Church, also declared the First Vision to be the foundation of the faith. David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1951), 19.
  18. ↑ PBS interview with Hinckley
  19. ↑ Kurt Widmer, Mormonism and the Nature of God: A Theological Evolution, 1833-1915 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 92.
  20. ↑ William Smith, "On Mormonism," in Vogel, EMD, 1:496.
  21. ↑ Howard (1980) , p. 24.
  22. ↑ Howard (1980) , p. 25.
  23. ↑ Howard (1980) , p. 25–26.
  24. ↑ Howard (1980) , p. 27.
  25. ↑ Howard (1980) , p. 27–28.
  26. ↑ Howard (1980) , p. 28.
  27. ↑ Howard (1980) , p. 28-29.
  28. ↑ According to its website, the church "does not legislate or mandate positions on issues of history. We place confidence in sound historical methodology as it relates to our church story. We believe that historians and other researchers should be free to come to whatever conclusions they feel are appropriate after careful consideration of documents and artifacts to which they have access. We benefit greatly from the significant contributions of the historical discipline." Community of Christ website.
  29. ↑ Our History - Introduction
  30. ↑ Timothy Dom Bucci, "Apostasy and Restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ" (Bridgewater, Michigan: The Church of Jesus Christ Print House, 2004), 5-10. The reference quotes the 1838 account as found in the LDS Church Pearl of Great Price, with some exceptions including the following paraphrases: 1) "As the light shown down on him, a personage appeared...." (2, 6) "This was in the year 1820" (6). The summary following the excerpt (10) emphasizes the importance of the Book of Mormon, but makes no additional comment about the First Vision.
  31. ↑ Church of Christ (Temple Lot) website - History
  32. ↑ Church of Christ (Temple Lot) website - Book of Mormon
  33. ↑ Backman (1969) , p. 2
  34. ↑ The best recent skeptical summary of the First Vision stories is Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 235-54. Palmer, a retired paid LDS religious instructor was disfellowshipped by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after publishing this book. Palmer concludes his chapter, "The 1832 account describes Joseph's experience most accurately. Joseph's 1832 description does not forbid him from joining a church, nor does it mention a revival or persecution. Instead, he became convicted of his sins from reading the scriptures and received forgiveness from the Savior in a personal epiphany. He stated that his call to God's work came in 1823 from an angel, later identified as Moroni. When a crisis developed around the Book of Mormon in 1838, he conflated several events into one. Now he was called by God the Father and Jesus Christ in 1820 during an extended revival, was forbidden to join any existing church, and was greatly persecuted by institutions and individuals for sharing his vision of God. This version is not supported by historical evidence."(253-54)
  35. ↑ "I was greatly surprised at his behavior; he treated my communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there would never be any more of them. 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."Smith (1842c) , p. 748
  36. ↑ "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.” James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith's First Vision in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 1 (Autumn 1966). In No Man Knows My History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), the skeptical Fawn Brodie is more biting: "Joseph's first published autobiographical sketch of 1834, already noted, contained no whisper of an event that, if it had happened, would have been the most soul-shattering experience of his whole youth." (24) "If something happened that spring morning in 1820, it passed totally unnoticed in Joseph's home town, and apparently did not even fix itself in the minds of members of his own family." (25)
  37. ↑ ...from the age of twelve years to fifteen I pondered many things in my heart concerning the situation 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 exceedingly 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 apostatized from the true and living faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the new testament..." in EMD 1: 28.
  38. ↑ JSH:1:10 In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be aright, which is it, and how shall I know it?
  39. ↑ JSH:1:18 ... No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
  40. ↑ The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) is part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, formerly known as the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, at Brigham Young University (BYU), which is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
  41. ↑ FARMS FAQ webpage
  42. ↑ JSH 1:20 ... And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother, “I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.” ...
  43. ↑ 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 EMD, 1: 289.
  44. ↑ He may have even spoken during some Methodist meetings—a childhood acquaintance of Smith's, Orsamus Turner (1801-1855), described him as a "very passable exhorter," which Dan Vogel has interpreted to mean some involvement with the Methodists "during the 1824-25 revival in Palmyra. Nevertheless, Vogel admits that Smith "could not have been a licensed exhorter since membership was a prerequisite."EMD, 3: 50, n. 15; Turner (1851) , p. 429 Turner says that "after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, he was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an "exhorter" is either "One who exhorts or urges on to action" or "a person appointed to give religious exhortation under the direction of a superior minister." Exhorters were common in early Methodism. (For instance, see Abel Stevens, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America (New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1884), 2: 235.) Nevertheless, according to Craig N. Ray, the word "exhorter" refers to Smith's activities in a debating club, not in Methodist meetings. (No other reputable scholar has adopted this interpretation.)Brown The full text of the Turner quote can be found at Olivercowdery.com It is a single very lengthy sentence, but in summary, it says: "...the mother's intellect occasionally shone out in him feebly, especially when he used to help us to solve some portentous questions of moral or political ethics, in our juvenile debating club... and, subsequently, after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp-meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, he was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings." Smith was also said to have been influenced by the preaching of the Rev. George Lane, a Methodist presiding elder.Cowdery (1834) , p. 13; Smith (1883)
  45. ↑ Bushman, 69-70. 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.
  46. ↑ (Lewis (Lewis) ; McKune (1879) ).
  47. ↑ Joseph Lewis and Hiel Lewis, Statement, in EMD, 4: 305. Richard Bushman writes: "Sometime in this dark period, Joseph attended Methodist meetings with Emma, probably to placate her family. One of Emma's uncles preached as a Methodist lay minister, and a brother-in-law was class leader in Harmony. Joseph was later said to have asked to be enrolled in the class. Joseph Lewis, a cousin of Emma's rose in wrath when he found Joseph's name....He confronted Joseph and demanded repentance or removal. For some reason Joseph's name remained on the roll for another six months, although there is no evidence of attendance." Bushman, 69-70.
  48. ↑ Palmer, 248-252. Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were excommunicated on April 12-13, 1838. The following week Smith contemplated rewriting his history. On April 26, he renamed the church. The next day he "started dictating a new first vision narrative." (248)
  49. ↑ Neal A. Maxwell, Meek and Lowly (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1987), 76).
  50. ↑ "One person perceives harmony and interconnections while another overstates differences. Think of how you retell a vivid event in your life—marriage, first day on the job, or an automobile accident. A record of all your comments would include short and long versions, along with many bits and pieces. Only by blending these glimpses can an outsider reconstruct what originally happened. The biggest trap is comparing description in one report with silence in another. By assuming that what is not said is not known, some come up with arbitrary theories of an evolution in the Prophet’s story. Yet we often omit parts of an episode because of the chance of the moment, not having time to tell everything, or deliberately stressing only a part of the original event in a particular situation. This means that any First Vision account contains some fraction of the whole experience. Combining all reliable reports will recreate the basics of Joseph Smith’s quest and conversation with the Father and Son."Anderson (1996)
  51. ↑ Interview with Marlin Jensen for PBS documentary "The Mormons"
  52. ↑ Interview with Richard Mouw for PBS documentary "The Mormons"
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