From the Archives: Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Historical Context: How a Historical Narrative became Theological

Greg Prince wrote “Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Historical Context” for the Journal of Mormon History. It is one of the best summaries of Joseph’s First Vision accounts to date.

The first question to be addressed is, “For an event so pivotal as the First Vision, why did Smith neither produce a written account, nor mention the vision to anyone who left a record of such a conversation, for more than a decade thereafter?” Prince responds,

While there is no definitive answer to this question, a published account by Peter Bauder, a non-Mormon, offers an intriguing possibility.

Bauder stayed with the Whitmer family for a day and night in October 1830, just six months after the founding of the Church and three months prior to the very earliest, albeit cryptic, First Vision account (1831). While Smith freely spoke with Bauder about the gold plates and the process by which he translated them, “he could give me no christian experience.” In the case of the first two vision accounts — those described in 1831 and 1832 — Smith expressed intensely personal feelings, which is probably why he had kept them private. It is possible that, in his conversation with Bauder, he sensed the other man’s disapproval and concluded that his “christian experience” was not only authentic, but needed to be boldly advanced. The 1831 account (later canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 20) was the earliest reference, but not until late in 1832 was the experience first couched in the language of an epiphany.

Most other collections of First Vision accounts, both skeptical and apologetic, begin with 1832. Prince claims that we actually have an even earlier version, from 1831, that has gone unnoticed because it is missing most of the major themes that we associate with the First Vision today:

The “Articles and Covenants,” a manuscript version of which became Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants… contains the earliest known account of the vision: “For after that it truly was manifested unto this first Elder, that he had Received a remission of his sins he was entangled again in the vanities of the world but after truly Repenting God ministered unto him by an Holy Angel . . . that he should translate a book.” Comparison of this cryptic account with the 1832 account verifies its priority as the earliest.

Prince summarizes the three main accounts, from 1832, 1835, and 1839, and looks at the differences:

Some of the differences between the three accounts are not necessarily problematic. For instance, the mention of evil forces in 1835a and 1839, but the absence of any such mention in 1832 could be explained as an inadvertent — or even purposeful — omission. The differing locations of the personage(s) relative to the pillar of light/fire may be viewed as trivial. The mention of only one personage in 1832, compared with one-plus-one and “many angels” in 1835a, and two simultaneously in 1839 could be argued as not ruling out the second personage being present — that is, arguing from silence. Whether such reconciliations are satisfactory depends on the individual reader. More problematic are questions that relate to differences that cannot easily be harmonized:

Among Joseph Smith’s conflicting stated motives, what seemed to be most important in driving him to the grove to seek enlightenment in prayer, and what was the message he received from the personage who addressed him?

What was the interplay between the question of which church was “true” and what light the Bible could shed on the question?

If the persecution was as intense as Joseph describes in 1839, why was it not mentioned in 1832 or 1835a? Did it even occur?

Of the “more problematic” questions, the third seems to be in the same category as what Prince dismisses earlier. That is, if Joseph forgot to mention additional personages or angels in one account or another, why should it bother us that he also forgot to mention ensuing persecution?

Prince elaborates,

Among Joseph Smith’s conflicting stated motives, what seemed to be most important in driving him to the grove to seek enlightenment in prayer, and what was the message he received from the personage who addressed him?

1832 states that Smith had one motive: a desire to obtain forgiveness of his sins. One might argue (from silence) that he merely neglected to include the other motivation (which church was correct?); however, 1832 negates that possibility by stating that he had already concluded, prior to praying, that none of the churches was correct. 1835a is an interesting hybrid, for the motivation expressed in it, the desire to find out which church was right for him to join, is echoed by the 1839 account, while the message of the personage, “thy sins are forgiven thee,” is that of 1832.

The motivation expressed in 1835a and 1839 was the same: “Which church should I join?” The message of 1839 matched the motivation: “I must join none of them, for they were all wrong.” 1839 says nothing of the central motivation and message of 1832: “I cried unto the Lord for mercy,” and, “Joseph my Son thy Sins are forgiven thee.”

This question and the next are where the accounts contradict each other in irreconcilable ways:

What was the interplay between the question of which church was “true” and what light the Bible could shed on the question?

1832 gives high priority to the Bible as a source for answers. Indeed, Smith’s quest for the true church was resolved through his study of the Bible well before his concerns for his own sinfulness took him to the grove. By 1839, institutional prerogatives had transformed a historical narrative into a theological one, and the prestige of the institutional church was greatly enhanced by a divinely uttered condemnation of all other churches. The Bible, which had all of the answers for Smith in 1832, now had none.

Why did the story change?

Prince suggests that just as the authors of the New Testament, writing for different audiences at different times, emphasized different aspects of Jesus’s ministry with sometimes contradictory results, so Joseph took a personal vision of forgiveness and forged it into a call to bring forth a new dispensation, one that evolved with the Church’s needs and with Joseph’s own theology:

What was the actual, historical event that signaled Jesus as being different from the rest of us? Five writers, four mutually exclusive answers. Does that mean that only one (or two, in the case of Matthew and Luke) of the five writers was telling the truth and that the others were lying? A similar charge has been leveled at Joseph Smith for changing the story of the First Vision. Or does it mean that as many as four of the New Testament authors, and perhaps all five, were using historical language to convey theology? And, as God’s revelation increased… the telling of the theology correspondingly changed.

And thus it is with the First Vision. Those who choose to see Joseph Smith and his ministry through the eyes of faith, while still paying attention to verifiable historical data can do so if they pay attention to the evolution of Christology and recognize that both issues represent history-become-theology. In neither instance is the actual event historically accessible — consider that the first description of the First Vision came more than a decade afterwards — and yet the process of revelation is apparent through the very fact that the stories evolved to keep up with that revelation.

Further Reading

• Dan Vogel, “The Earliest Mormon Concept of God.” Covers Joseph’s shift from modalism (God and Jesus are different “modes” of one being) to binitarian (The Father and Jesus are one God and the Holy Spirit is a manifestation of their power) to tritheism (God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are all distinct beings). These are consistent with the 1832, 1835, and 1839 accounts of the First Vision, respectively.
• Stan Larson, “Another Look at Joseph Smith’s First Vision.” Larson explains how the 1832 account was cut out of Joseph Smith’s letterbook and hidden by the Church Historian’s office during the tenure of Joseph Fielding Smith, and gives an in-depth analysis of the changing number of personages in the different accounts of the Vision.