Next on the Joseph Smith Papers: the appearance of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, to young Joseph Smith,

what They told him, and what it meant to Him.

Plus a perspective on the few and differing accounts that Joseph Smith himself related.

We really only have four sources for this very significant beginning of Mormonism that come

from the Prophet Joseph Smith.

That’s ahead on the Joseph Smith Papers.

KJZZ television, in cooperation with the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

presents this weekly series highlighting the research of scholars and historians

as they prepare for the publication of the Joseph Smith Papers.

And now your host, Glenn Rawson.

Recently, I had the rare opportunity to visit Church archives and read from the original documents in which Joseph Smith's first vision was recorded. In last week’s program

we told that story, in Joseph’s own words,

up to the point where he saw a pillar of light.

Now, today, using those same four original accounts,

we finish the telling of that sacred story.

And then later in the program, historian Ron Barney discusses why there are differences in the accounts and how the First Vision came to be recognized as the defining event of the Restoration.

We start now, picking up the 1838 version of the Vision.

“Just at this moment of great alarm,

I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun,

which descended gradually until it fell upon me.” In 1835,

Joseph described this light as a pillar of flame,

which seemed to spread all around, and yet nothing was consumed.

He said, “It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me

I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air.”

In 1842, Joseph added this detail:

“I saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness.

One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other, ’This is my beloved Son.

Hear Him.’” In his 1832 account,

Joseph recorded that the Lord also said to him, “Joseph, my son,

thy sins are forgiven thee.”

“My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join.

No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself so as to be able to speak,

than I asked the personage who stood above me in the air

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. I was answered that I must join

none of them. For they were all wrong,

and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight, that those professors

were all corrupt, ’that they draw near to me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness,

but they deny the power thereof.′

He again forbade me to join with any of them.

And many other things did He say to me, which I cannot write at this time.” In 1842,

Joseph said, “I was expressly commanded to go not after them,

at the same time receiving a promise that the fulness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me.

When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven.”

Joseph recorded in 1832 the effect this vision had on him. He said, “My soul was filled with love, and for many days I could rejoice with great joy and the Lord was with me.”

Now, because of this, we might assume that Joseph told everyone of his experience

and that he published it abroad.

But the record suggests just the opposite.

Indeed, Joseph Smith, who was not illiterate—

the examples we do have of his writing demonstrates somebody who could communicate very well, at least by our standards—

Joseph Smith himself was reluctant to write the things that

would become a part of the historical record.

Joseph Smith—and he never went into explanation as to the implications of all of this— but he was uncomfortable (and there are more evidences than what I’ve just described to you) in putting what was going on in his mind on paper.

Joseph did not bring a long experience of being in a church

or preparing executive records or anticipating the future 300 years from now. These kinds of things are going to be required. Now we want him to be that way.

Does Joseph Smith's personal style have anything to the textual record that we have about the first vision?

Joseph's initial telling of his vision to a local minister provoked ridicule and derision,

which is one of the reasons why he was reluctant to even speak of it in later life. He said it excited a great deal of persecution against him.

Hence, it would be 12 years before Joseph would write his vision down. And as far as his even talking about it?

In 1961,

in the Improvement Era, Hugh Nibley, the noted scholar from Brigham Young University, said something that is as applicable today as it was back then. Let me just read an excerpt.

He said, “One may ask, ’why should Joseph Smith have waited so long to tell his story officially?′ From his own explanation in the 1838 account,

it is apparent that he would not have told it publicly at all,

had he not been

induced—

and that’s the word he used—to do so by all the scandal stories that were circulating.” He gives some

larger context to the way Joseph Smith treated this sacred information. He said, “It was a rule among those possessing the gospel in ancient times that the greater teachings be not publicly divulged.

What the present state of evidence most strongly suggests is that Joseph Smith did tell his story to some of his followers at an early date. He did this reluctantly, confining his report to bare essentials. Throughout his life Joseph Smith never

was eager to tell the story of his First Vision.”

What it sounds like you are saying is that the

reticence to talk about spiritual experiences that we’ve been taught as modern Latter-day Saints was the very thing that prevented Joseph from being so liberal to talk about it in eighteen—from 1820 to

1832. He had the same reluctance we do to talk about sacred things.

More so. Indeed, at a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles— who had only been called for a half of a year—on November the 12th, 1835, as Joseph was trying to prepare them for the anticipated endowment in the Kirtland temple, he said to them, “We must be clean every whit.

And if God gives you a manifestation,

keep it to yourself.” Indeed, if Joseph Smith had come out of the grove in 1820 and raced home and written it down, it would have been entirely uncharacteristic of him.

It would have been uncharacteristic of the rest of his life.

Other scholars have a similar perspective of Joseph.

When he leaves the woodlands, he probably is thinking, “the fulness of the gospel? What is it?

When will it be restored? What role will I play?”

And he goes home. He’s weakened. He leans up against the mantel.

His mother, who’s there probably cooking or whatever, says “Joseph!

Are you all right?” And he said,

“Never mind mother, I’m well enough off.”

’Mother, never mind, don’t try to take me there, because I'm not going to tell you.′ The evidence indicates that Joseph probably did not tell his family for some time.

You'll recall that later when Moroni came and that next day in the field, when Moroni appeared for the fourth time,

there was this exchange between them.

And he says, “Did you tell your father is I commanded you?”

And he said, “No.”

“Joseph, why didn’t you?” “I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me.”

You mean Joseph told his mother and father about this horrendously marvelous experience, the First Vision, about God and His Son,

and they could believe that and accept it, but they couldn’t—

he was afraid his father wouldn’t believe about an angel? I see. So what you're saying is because he was reticent to talk about the Moroni experience,

it probably indicates he didn’t talk about the First Vision.

And I think there’s other strong indicators for that.

They were a divided family regarding religious things.

This was Joseph’s own personal experience, this First Vision.

It was his Christian experience.

Joseph was reticent to talk about those things because,

as his mother said, Joseph almost never talked about sacred things.

Joseph wouldn’t have just—

Why did he tell the minister? Because a minister was involved,

as a Methodist, in encouraging ‘go seek God in the woods.’

That's the shouting Methodist approach. Get your answer! And he speaks with the minister. The minister takes it—Uh.

He doesn't like what he hears.

And so I think Joseph is reluctant to say too much. In the first account of the First Vision, written in 1832,

Joseph says, “None believed.”

Who or whomever he told, it would seem that the account is saying, regardless of who they are,

if he told someone, they didn’t believe him. This was sacred to him. He never in his life just

Threw out sacred things, he was he was very thoughtful regarding those things.

With the ongoing Restoration,

critical events in 1832 prompted Joseph to finally put in writing the First Vision.

The Church had been organized for two years.

The only published record used by the Church at that time was the Book of Mormon. Nothing after that. But in 1832, something remarkable happened.

A First Presidency was organized for the very first time.

A coincident to that—

Joseph Smith, for reasons that he never explained, so we do not know, we would have to speculate,

that’s the best that we could do,

started to create what we would today in our vernacular call the the papers of a president's office. Books were purchased.

We'll see some of those today.

And one of those books contains a very, very interesting beginning that reads,

A history of the life of Joseph Smith Jr., an account

of his marvelous experience and of all the mighty acts which he doeth in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.

So this may have

been an effort on the part of Joseph Smith to defend himself.

Newspaper reports about the Book of Mormon, about him, begin in August of 1829.

That’s a half of a year before the Church is even organized.

Starts out of Palmyra, and then momentum began to build. And of course, with the publication of the Book of Mormon, that information exploded. And of course, one newspaper borrows from another newspaper.

And the Church hadn’t been producing anything to defend itself. This may have been an effort on the part of Joseph Smith to capture for the first time some of these events to give some authority in defense of the assertions that he had been making since the very beginning.

One of the first detractors was Alexander Campbell,

a charismatic and influential minister in Ohio.

Early in 1831, Alexander Campbell, after having seen some folks in his faith peel off to join the Mormons, published a pamphlet in the Millennial Harbinger, an article called “Delusions.”

The first real, substantial appraisal of the Book of Mormon

and circumstances surrounding the coming forth of it. Early in 1832, or in early to mid 1832, That article in the Millennial Harbinger becomes a booklet, a pamphlet, that was disseminated that undermined the credibility of Joseph Smith,

assaulted the text of the Book of Mormon in fairly in a fairly sophisticated way,

to the point where people still use it today.

An outright frontal attack on Joseph. An outright frontal attack. This account is interesting in a number of ways.

The text begins as a dictation to Frederick G. Williams, and as you notice right here,

Frederick tries to capture his words and for reasons that we do not know Joseph Smith apparently picks up the pen here and starts to tell the story himself.

This 1832 account, perhaps never meant for publication,

is particularly expressive of Joseph's anguish in his personal struggle. We read some of those words earlier.

The whole of that account will be published in the Joseph Smith Papers for all of us to read.

The next account of his telling of the First Vision comes about in a most interesting way.

This is Joseph Smith's diary kept for the period of late 1835 into the spring of 1836.

A visitor came, a man who identified himself as Joshua the Jewish minister, whom Joseph, even, recognized because it appears in the text was a man by the name of Robert Mathias,

who was kind of an itinerant tenor

and character who traveled about the eastern part of the United States

under the guise of religion. And he came to Kirtland to see Joseph Smith for reasons that we do not know. Joseph began to tell Robert Mathias his story,

and he begins this story in a very interesting way.

And I think it’ll give some context to the

the story that we want to tell. He said,

“I commenced giving him a relation of the circumstances

connected with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon as follows.”

And then begins to tell the story of the First Vision.

He uses the First Vision as a preface to this story,

which is the most vivid story at that time of Mormonism:

the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

Well, wait a minute, you're saying that the First Vision was recorded here as a preface to the Book of Mormon story?

That’s what he said. When the missionaries first went out in the early Church They did not tell the story of the First Vision.

We don't have record of that happening until quite a bit later. And primarily the missionaries were talking about the Book of Mormon. They actually had the Book of Mormon in hand

as physical evidence.

I see the logic of that because it's the great tool of conversion, I understand that.

But not telling the story of the First Vision seems really different from today.

It is very different than today. But Joseph, in this context,

uses the First Vision as the preface to his larger story of telling of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon by the visit of the Angel.

This 1835 account is very interesting in other ways.

He says things in here, for example,

hearing hearing footsteps behind him, his tongue swelling.

One heavenly messenger coming down first, followed by the second heavenly messenger,

many angels appearing in this vision.

This is a private telling, never meant to be published, captured by a clerk.

As the Church grew, so too did the power of its enemies and the rumors and falsehoods.

It was at this time that Joseph said he needed to put the public record straight.

As the Saints were enduring the difficulties of being removed from New York, from Ohio, and from sections of Missouri,

Joseph felt compelled in 1838

to tell a story, which we believe from the outset he intended to have published.

This is what we call book A1 of the history of the Church. This is the large tome that most of us are familiar with that as we turn to the back of the Pearl of Great Price, it’s Joseph Smith—History.

It’s the story that we have become familiar with. It’s the story of Joseph’s early life that becomes canonized.

The prophet Joseph Smith said,

“Owing to the many reports which have been put in circulation by evil designing persons in relation to the rise and progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

all of which have been designed by the authors thereof to militate against its character as a Church and its progress in the world,

I have been induced to write this history.”

The stories that have been put in circulation were about the character of himself and the The Book of Mormon.

The first vision is not an issue then, at this time.

But Joseph makes it a part of this, and it’s the formal, corporate story meant for publication. That’s why this is the official

account of the story. And it may have, in completion, the largest text telling this story. And it’s become beloved to the Latter-day Saints.

It's the one that we're most familiar with.

The last account containing the First Vision was written in 1842 in Nauvoo.

The fourth account of the Prophet Joseph Smith, interestingly also meant for publication, is what today we call the Wentworth letter, or more properly called the Barstow Wentworth letter, which originated from the inquiry of a Boston lawyer by the name of George Barstow through his Dartmouth College buddy John Wentworth, who was the editor of the Chicago Democrat, who lived in Illinois with Joseph, communicated with Joseph Smith.

Barstool was writing a history of his native state of New Hampshire,

and because the Church was exploding in popularity in southern New Hampshire at the time,

George Barstool wanted to have some account of it. And why not go right to the source?

So then Joseph Smith writes a response.

Whatever happened to that response, we do not know.

But in the Church periodical The Times and Seasons, Joseph Smith published the text of this letter,

which he returned back to John Wentworth.

Not only did Joseph include the account of the First Vision in this story,

but also what we are familiar with today as the Articles of Faith appear as the last entry right in that very, very important letter.

It was in this letter, for example, that Joseph said between 1823 and 1827,

“I was visited by many angels.”

It's the only place that he tells that that account.

He gives us cursory hints from time to time, but did not elaborate, which was very custom.

He didn't give detail and elaboration on these accounts,

which perfectly fits his style.

Now there are others who would leave a record of the First Vision, probably from Joseph telling the story to them,

but from the documents written or dictated by Joseph,

there are only four. Emphasizing different things. Emphasizing different things, sometimes in a non-public setting. In this one,

this was meant for publication. This is a public rehearsal of his account.

Now, and in defense of the Prophet Joseph, anyone who’s ever told a story knows that depending on who you're talking to, you're going to teach different things that that audience needs to hear. And this is the official account of the vision containing the facts that Joseph wanted us to know and remember and focus on. I think that’s an accurate appraisal. It is safe to say that Joseph never told every detail of the whole account of everything that happened, is that a safe assertion? That’s a very safe assertion.

The First Vision was sacred to Joseph.

He would not—could not—be free with the telling of it.

But as time went on, though,

the Church came to recognize the deep significance of that vision to them and began to tell the story.

This pamphlet, “An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions” actually, the very first iteration of it reads, “A

Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions.”

This was part of Orson Pratt's missionary service in

Great Britain in 1840, while he was stationed in Edinburgh.

He gleaning information that we believe he received from Joseph Smith himself, published for the first time,

the account of the First Vision.

Indeed, we have reason to believe that this particular pamphlet helped influence the text,

two years later, of what we call the Barstow Wentworth Letter.

So it was held in high esteem.

I have to point out we are looking at the very first missionary tract of the First Vision.

That's correct.

While we have only four accounts of the First Vision produced by Joseph Smith,

there are accounts written by others. In a later interview,

I asked Ron about these accounts.

We know that Joseph Smith told the story of the First Vision in a number of selected circumstances.

We know that when he was in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1834, for example, that he provided the Latter-day Saints there with an account of his vision.

We know that in 1835, within the week that he rendered the account that was captured

on paper by his scribe, Warren Parrish,

that he told the story to a man named Holmes.

Based upon Orson Pratt’s pamphlet that appeared in 1840 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Joseph had told him about the vision.

We know that in 1842, while Orson Hyde was serving as a missionary in Germany,

he published a pamphlet called Ein Ruf aus der Wüste—a cry from the wilderness,

wherein he repeats an account of the First Vision not unlike that provided by Orson Pratt.

An editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette, in September of 1843,

asks Joseph about his experience. From that,

we know that Joseph Smith expressed something about that First Vision which was published later on in the New York Spectator in late September 1843.

And then a very significant account,

because there’s some detail to it, was given by the Prophet Joseph Smith just a month before he died in 1844 to Alexander Neibaur,

a convert who lived in Northview.

We learn a number of things from some of these subsequent accounts. Another demonstration that Joseph gave

some particulars to some and left some detail out for others. For example, in the Neibaur account, he actually gives a description of Jesus.

As scholars, we take these accounts seriously.

It may not be the case that in the initial volumes of the Joseph Smith papers that we analyze them,

but certainly they will be given account in our annotations

as we try to give perspective and context to Joseph Smith and how he represented himself

and the very important things that inaugurated the founding of the Restoration of the gospel in the last days.

As the Restoration progressed,

Orson Pratt and John Taylor and others continued to teach the significance of the First Vision.

And until today, when it is recognized by Latter-day Saints everywhere as the veritable hinge pin of their faith. In our next show, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

The book compels us

to come to terms with Joseph Smith. Next week on the Joseph Smith Papers.