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|claim=Both Joseph Smith, Sr. and at least two of his sons worked at "money digging," using seer stones in mostly unsuccessful attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure. | |claim=Both Joseph Smith, Sr. and at least two of his sons worked at "money digging," using seer stones in mostly unsuccessful attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure. | ||
|authorsources=<br> | |authorsources=<br> | ||
− | #{{Harvnb|Smith|1838a|pp=42–43}} (saying that he had been a "money digger" but that it "was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it"). ''Elders’ Journal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints'',1: 43 (July 1838). For a discussion of Joseph Smith's money-digging activities by a sympathetic academic biographer, see | + | #{{Harvnb|Smith|1838a|pp=42–43}} (saying that he had been a "money digger" but that it "was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it"). ''Elders’ Journal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints'',1: 43 (July 1838). For a discussion of Joseph Smith's money-digging activities by a sympathetic academic biographer, see Richard Lyman Bushman, ''[[Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling]]'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 48-49. |
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*It should be noted this text was removed from the 1853 edition of Lucy's history. | *It should be noted this text was removed from the 1853 edition of Lucy's history. | ||
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− | + | D. Michael Quinn has written that Lucy Mack Smith viewed these magical practices as "part of her family's religious quest" while denying that they prevented "family members from accomplishing other, equally important work." | |
|authorsources=<br> | |authorsources=<br> | ||
− | # | + | #D. Michael Quinn, ''Early Mormonism and the Magic World View'' ((Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), 55: "Joseph Smith's mother did not deny her family participation in occult activities but simply affirmed that these did not prevent family members from accomplishing other, equally important work." In a note at ''EMD'' 1: 285 (n. 84), Dan Vogel argues that this sentence from the draft may have been excised from the 1853 edition of Lucy Mack Smith's memoirs because of its allusion to folk magic, "which was a sensitive subject for those not wishing to give credence to claims made in affidavits collected in 1833 by Philastus Hurlbut." |
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Quinn also notes that the Smith family "participated in a wide range of magic practices, and Smith's first vision occurred within the context of his family's treasure quest." | Quinn also notes that the Smith family "participated in a wide range of magic practices, and Smith's first vision occurred within the context of his family's treasure quest." | ||
|authorsources=<br> | |authorsources=<br> | ||
− | #{{Harv|Quinn|1998|p=31}}. | + | #{{Harv|Quinn|1998|p=31}}. Michael Coe, professor emeritus of Anthropology at Yale, has called Joseph Smith "a great religious leader...one of the greatest people who ever lived" because like "like a shaman in anthropology," like "magicians doing magic," he "started out faking it" but ended up convincing himself (as well as others) that his visions were true. [http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/coe.html Coe interview on PBS "The Mormons."] |
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*{{WikipediaNPOV|editor=John Foxe|wikipedialink=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_Vision&diff=172773210&oldid=172723855}} It strikes us as odd that Michael D. Coe, an Anthropology professor who is well known as one of the foremost experts on the Maya, is quoted in an article describing the environment in which Joseph Smith's first vision occurred. Dr. Coe is not considered an authority on the First Vision—he is used here simply because of his opinion that Joseph Smith was like a "shaman" and that he started out "faking it." It is helpful to view Dr. Coe's quote in context. | *{{WikipediaNPOV|editor=John Foxe|wikipedialink=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_Vision&diff=172773210&oldid=172723855}} It strikes us as odd that Michael D. Coe, an Anthropology professor who is well known as one of the foremost experts on the Maya, is quoted in an article describing the environment in which Joseph Smith's first vision occurred. Dr. Coe is not considered an authority on the First Vision—he is used here simply because of his opinion that Joseph Smith was like a "shaman" and that he started out "faking it." It is helpful to view Dr. Coe's quote in context. | ||
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*Vogel notes on p. 242, note 33: "Alvin became twenty-two on 11 February 1820." | *Vogel notes on p. 242, note 33: "Alvin became twenty-two on 11 February 1820." | ||
− | *{{ | + | *{{Detail_old|First Vision/Lucy Mack Smith and the Presbyterians}} |
==References== | ==References== |
Summary: Wikipedia article "First Vision"
Jump to Subtopic:
Story of the vision | A FAIR Analysis of: Wikipedia article "First Vision", a work by author: Anonymous
|
Dating the First Vision |
Smith was born on December 23, 1805, in Vermont, and around 1816 or 1817, his family moved to a farm just outside the town of Palmyra, New York..Author's sources:
- Smith (1832) , p. 1
Like many other Americans living on the frontier at the beginning of the 19th century, Smith and his family believed in visions, dreams, and other mystical communications with God.Author's sources:
- Quinn (1998)
For example, in 1811, Smith's maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack, described a series of visions and voices from God that resulted in his conversion to Christianity at the age of seventy-six.Author's sources:
- "About midnight I saw a light about a foot from my face as bright as fire; the doors were all shut and no one stirring in the house. I thought by this that I had but a few moments to live, and oh what distress I was in....Another night soon after, I saw another light as bright as the first, at a small distance from my face, and I thought I had but a few moments to live. And not sleeping nights and reading, all day I was in misery; well you may think I was in distress, soul and body. At another time in the dead of the night I was called by my Christian name; I arise up to answer to my name. The doors all being shut and the house still, I thought the Lord called, and I had but a moment to live."Mack (1811) , p. 25
Before Smith was born, his mother Lucy Mack Smith went to a grove near her home in Vermont and prayed about her husband Joseph Smith, Sr.'s repudiation of evangelical religion.Author's sources:
- Smith (1853) , p. 54
I was very much hurt by this but did not reply to him then but retired to a grove of handsome wild cherry trees and pray[ed] to the Lord that he <would> so influence the heart of my husband that he would <one day> be induced to rec[e]ive the Gospel whenever it was preached[.]
As it is known that Lucy prayed many times and for many reasons, we can only assume that the wiki editor chose to include this because she went to a grove of trees to pray and he wants to relate that to her son Joseph's later experience in a grove.
That night she said she had a dream which she interpreted as a prophecy that Joseph, Sr., would later accept the "pure and undefiled Gospel of the Son of God."Author's sources:
- Smith (1853) , pp. 55–56; Quinn (1998) .
And the interpretation given to me was...Joseph, when he was more advanced in life, would hear and received with his whole heart, and rejoice therein; and unto him would be added intelligence, happiness, glory and everlasting life.
She also stated that Smith, Sr. had a number of dreams or visions between 1811 and 1819,Author's sources:
- Smith (1853) , pp. 56–59, 70–74. Smith, Sr.'s first vision was around 1811 (id. at 56-57), and his "seventh and last vision" was in 1819 (id. at 73–74). Bushman says, "The best barometer of the household's religious climate are seven dreams Joseph Sr. had in the years before and after his son's first vision. Lucy wrote down five of them, calling them visions. Since no other member of the family gave an account of the dreams or even referred to them, and Lucy recorded them thirty years later, there is no way of testing the accuracy of her memory." Bushman (2005) , p. 36.
the first vision occurring when his mind was "much excited upon the subject of religion."Author's sources:
- Smith (1853) , pp. 56–57.
Joseph Sr.'s first vision confirmed to him the correctness of his refusal to join any organized religious group.Author's sources:
- Smith (1853) , pp. 57–58. Joseph Smith, Sr.'s second vision as reported by Lucy Mack Smith exhibits many similarities to the Tree of life vision which Joseph Smith, Jr. would later dictate as part of the Book of Mormon Bushman (2005) , p. 36.
About this time my husband's mind became much excited upon the subject of religion; yet he would not subscribe to any particular system of faith, but contended or the ancient order, as established by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and his Apostles.
Critics point to similarities between a dream Joseph Smith's father had and Lehi's dream of the tree of life as evidence that Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon based on his own experiences. Significantly, none of Joseph's family regarded the similarities as evidence that Joseph Jr. was engaging in a forgery.
The details of the dream were written long after the Book of Mormon was published. Lucy's account is (at the very least) influenced in its verbiage by the Book of Mormon. Either Joseph Sr. had a remarkably similar dream, or Lucy used the material in the Book of Mormon to either bolster her memory, or it unwittingly influenced her memory.
According to Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith, Senior, the father of the Prophet, had the following dream in 1811 when the family was living in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Joseph Smith, Junior, would have been 5 years old at the time.
I thought...I was traveling in an open, desolate field, which appeared to be very barren. As I was thus traveling, the thought suddenly came into my mind that I had better stop and reflect upon what I was doing, before I went any further. So I asked myself, "What motive can I have in traveling here, and what place can this be?" My guide, who was by my side, as before, said, "This is the desolate world; but travel on." The road was so broad and barren that I wondered why I should travel in it; for, said I to myself, "Broad is the road, and wide is the gate that leads to death, and many there be that walk therein; but narrow is the way, and straight is the gate that leads to everlasting' life, and few there be that go in there at."
Traveling a short distance farther, I came to a narrow path. This path I entered, and, when I had traveled a little way in it, I beheld a beautiful stream of water, which ran from the east to the west. Of this stream I could see neither the source nor yet the termination; but as far as my eyes could extend I could see a rope running along the bank of it, about as high as a man could reach, and beyond me was a low, but very pleasant valley, in which stood a tree such as I had never seen before. It was exceedingly handsome, insomuch that I looked upon it with wonder and admiration. Its beautiful branches spread themselves somewhat like an umbrella, and it bore a kind of fruit, in shape much like a chestnut bur, and as white as snow, or, if possible whiter. I gazed upon the same with considerable interest, and as I was doing so the burs or shells commenced opening and shedding their particles, or the fruit which they contained, which was of dazzling whiteness. I drew near and began to eat of it, and I found it delicious beyond description. As I was eating, I said in my heart, "I can not eat this alone, I must bring my wife and children, that they may partake with me." Accordingly, I went and brought my family, which consisted of a wife and seven children, and we all commenced eating, and praising God for this blessing. We were exceedingly happy, insomuch that our joy could not easily be expressed.
While thus engaged, I beheld a spacious building standing opposite the valley which we were in, and it appeared to reach to the very heavens. It was full of doors and windows, and they were filled with people, who were very finely dressed. When these people observed us in the low valley, under the tree, they pointed the finger of scorn at us, and treated us with all manner of disrespect and contempt. But their contumely we utterly disregarded.
I presently turned to my guide, and inquired of him the meaning of the fruit that was so delicious. He told me it was the pure love of God, shed abroad in the hearts of all those who love him, and keep his commandments. He then commanded me to go and bring the rest of my children. I told him that we were all there. "No," he replied, "look yonder, you have two more, and you must bring them also." Upon raising my eyes, I saw two small children, standing some distance off. I immediately went to them, and brought them to the tree; upon which they commenced eating with the rest, and we all rejoiced together. The more we ate, the more we seemed to desire, until we even got down upon our knees, and scooped it up, eating it by double handfuls.
After feasting in this manner a short time, I asked my guide what was the meaning of the spacious building which I saw. He replied, "It is Babylon, it is Babylon, and it must fall. The people in the doors and windows are the inhabitants thereof, who scorn and despise the Saints of God because of their humility."
I soon awoke, clapping my hands together for joy.[1]
There are many obvious connections between this dream and Lehi's vision of the tree of life recorded in 1 Nephi 8:
The source of the dream is Lucy's manuscript for Joseph Smith, The Prophet And His Progenitors For Many Generations, which she dictated to Martha Jane Coray in the winter of 1844–45. Note the date of Lucy's dictation: more than 15 years after Joseph Smith, Junior, dictated the Book of Mormon.
Dreams are notoriously ephemeral. It is difficult for most people to remember the details of a dream, and those details quickly fade in the first few minutes after awaking.
The amount of detail Lucy records and the second-hand nature and late date of her testimony have led many to the conclusion that Lucy's recollection was strongly influenced by what she read in the Book of Mormon. That is, it is difficult to establish how much Joseph Sr.'s original dream had in common with the Book of Mormon, since the details which we have are only available after the fact, when Lucy's memory would have been affected by what she learned in the more detailed Book of Mormon account (even as it stands, the Book of Mormon account is far more detailed and lengthy than the material from 1844-45).
Thus, it seems plausible that there is a relationship between the Book of Mormon and Lucy's text--but, we cannot know in what direction(s) that influence moved.
The Smith family was also exposed to the intense revivalism of this era. During the Second Great Awakening, numerous revivals occurred in many communities in the northeastern United States and were often reported in the Palmyra Register, a local paper read by the Smith family.Author's sources:
- Turner (1852) , p. 214
In the Palmyra area itself, large multi-denominational revivals occurred in 1816–17 and 1824–25Author's sources:
- Bushman (2005) , pp. 36, 46; Vogel (2004) , pp. 26, 58–60: "Indeed, it was the revival of 1824-25, his family's conversion, and his mother's pressure that caused [Smith] so much pain and suffering rather than the revival of 1817 or the one he 'remembered' for 1820." Even Bushman does not argue for an 1820 revival in Palmyra, stating only that the "great revival of 1816 and 1817, which nearly doubled the number of Palmyra Presbyterians, was in progress when the Smiths arrived." (36)
For a detailed response, see: First Vision/Religious revivals in 1820
In the intervening years, there were Methodist revivals, at least within twenty road miles of Palmyra; and more than sixty years later a newspaper editor in Lyons, New York, recalled "various religious awakenings in the neighborhood."Author's sources:
- Mather (1880) , pp. 198–199Roberts (1902) .
The Smith family also practiced a form of folk magic,Author's sources:
- Quinn (1998) , p. xx-xxi A 1985 memorandum sent from the headquarter of the Church Educational System to regional and local administrators read, "Even if the [Mark Hofmann] letters were to be unauthentic, such issues as Joseph Smith's involvement in treasure-seeking and folk magic remain. Ample evidence exists for both of these, even without the letters."
which, although not uncommon in this time and place, was criticized by many contemporary Protestants "as either fraudulent illusion or the workings of the Devil."Author's sources:
- Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), 256.
Chase is an odd duck, a money digger and a Methodist preacher, who really seems most irritated at Joseph Smith for taking his seer stone. (Get over it, Willard; it's just a rock.) My biggest problem with Chase as a witness is not that he disbelieves in Smith but that he does believe in money digging. --John Foxe (15 February 2007) off-site
Both Joseph Smith, Sr. and at least two of his sons worked at "money digging," using seer stones in mostly unsuccessful attempts to locate lost items and buried treasure.Author's sources:
- Smith (1838a) , pp. 42–43 (saying that he had been a "money digger" but that it "was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it"). Elders’ Journal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,1: 43 (July 1838). For a discussion of Joseph Smith's money-digging activities by a sympathetic academic biographer, see Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 48-49.
Tenth—"Was not Joseph Smith a money digger?" Yes, but it was never a very profitable job for him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it.
Note how Richard L. Bushman is qualified as a "sympathetic" academic biographer.
In a draft of her memoirs, Lucy Mack Smith referred to folk magic:I shall change my theme for the present, but let not my reader suppose that because I shall pursue another topic for a season that we stopt our labor and went at trying to win the faculty of Abrac, drawing magic circles or soothsaying, to the neglect of all kinds of business. We never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation. But whilst we worked with our hands, we endeavored to remember the service of and the welfare of our souls.</blockquote>Author's sources:
- Lucy Smith "Preliminary Manuscript," Church Archives, in EMD, 1: 285
NowI shall change my theme for the present but let not my reader suppose that because I shall pursue our labor and went <at> tryin=g to win the faculty of Abrac[,] drawing Magic circles or sooth saying to the neglect of all kinds of but[i.sness we never during our lives suffered one important interest to swallow up every other obligation but whilst we worked with our hands we endeavored to remmember the service of & the welfare of our souls.
D. Michael Quinn has written that Lucy Mack Smith viewed these magical practices as "part of her family's religious quest" while denying that they prevented "family members from accomplishing other, equally important work."Author's sources:
- D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View ((Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987), 55: "Joseph Smith's mother did not deny her family participation in occult activities but simply affirmed that these did not prevent family members from accomplishing other, equally important work." In a note at EMD 1: 285 (n. 84), Dan Vogel argues that this sentence from the draft may have been excised from the 1853 edition of Lucy Mack Smith's memoirs because of its allusion to folk magic, "which was a sensitive subject for those not wishing to give credence to claims made in affidavits collected in 1833 by Philastus Hurlbut."
D. Michael Quinn has noted, "Joseph Smith's mother did not deny her family's participation in occult activities but simply affirmed that these did not prevent family members from accomplishing other, equally important work. More significantly, she also affirmed that these folk magic activities were part of her family's religious quest" (Quinn 1987, 55)
Quinn also notes that the Smith family "participated in a wide range of magic practices, and Smith's first vision occurred within the context of his family's treasure quest."Author's sources:
- Quinn (1998) , p. 31. Michael Coe, professor emeritus of Anthropology at Yale, has called Joseph Smith "a great religious leader...one of the greatest people who ever lived" because like "like a shaman in anthropology," like "magicians doing magic," he "started out faking it" but ended up convincing himself (as well as others) that his visions were true. Coe interview on PBS "The Mormons."
I realized what kind of a person this Joseph Smith was. In my opinion, he was not just a great religious leader; he was a really great American, and I think he was one of the greatest people who ever lived. This extraordinary man, who put together a religion—probably with many falsities in it, falsehoods, so forth, to begin with—eventually came to believe in it so much that he really bought his own story and made it believable to other people. In this respect, he's a lot like a shaman in anthropology: these extraordinary religious practitioners in places like Siberia, North America among the Eskimo, the Inuit, who start out probably in their profession as almost like magicians doing magic.
I really think that Joseph Smith, like shamans everywhere, started out faking it. I have to believe this—that he didn't believe this at all, that he was out to impress, but he got caught up in the mythology that he created. This is what happens to shamans: They begin to believe they can do these things. It becomes a revelation: They're speaking to God. And I don't think they start out that way; I really do not. ... (Michael D. Coe interview off-site)
Jan Shipps notes that while Joseph Smith's "religious claims were rejected by many of the persons who had known him in the 1820s because they remembered him as a practitioner of the magic arts," others of his earliest followers were attracted to his claims "for precisely the same reason."Author's sources:
- Shipps (1985) , p. 18.
Richard Bushman has called the spiritual tradition of the Smith family "a religious melee." Joseph Smith, Sr., insisted on morning and evening prayers, but he was spiritually adrift. "If there was a personal motive for Joseph Smith Jr.'s revelations, it was to satisfy his family's religious want and, above all, to meet the need of his oft-defeated, unmoored father."Author's sources:
- Bushman , pp. 25–27
Joseph Sr. was not lacking in religion. He spontaneously knelt with his wife to pray for Sophronia in her illness and insisted on morning and evening prayers. Revival seasons aroused his desire for religion. when Solomon Mack was converted during the revival of 1810 and 1811, Joseph Sr. "became much excited upon the subject of religion." What he could not embrace was the institutional religion of his time.
No members of the Smith family were church members before 1820, the reported date of the First Vision.Author's sources:
- Quinn (1998) , p. 322. Quinn calls the Smiths "unchurched Christians" who "possessed seer stones, a dagger for drawing the required circles, as well as magic parchments to ward off thieves and communicate with good spirits to help find treasures."
This course I pursued for many years till at last I concluded that my mind would be easier if I were baptized and I found a minister who was willing to baptize me and leave me free from
anymembership in any church after which I pursued the same course untillthe amy oldest son attained his 22nd year. (1845 manuscript, original spelling retained) (Vogel, Early Mormon Documents 1:242)
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