Lack of contemporary Father and Son vision until 1838?

Criticism

There is no mention of Joseph Smith seeing the Father and Son in any “contemporary” newspaper, diary, LDS publication, or writing of any kind until the year 1838.

Source(s) of the criticism

• Christian Research and Counsel, “Documented History of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” full-color pamphlet, 10 pages. [There is a notation within this pamphlet indicating that research and portions of text were garnered from Utah Lighthouse Ministry]

Response

In The Reflector, vol. 2, no. 13, 14 February 1831 it is said that four LDS missionaries were teaching in November 1830 that Joseph Smith had seen "God" personally. The 1832 historical recital listed below and the 1835 historical recounting below both qualify as 'contemporary' accounts.

Altogether there are at least eight eyewitness contemporary and reminiscent accounts that confirm Joseph Smith taught between 1831 and 1837 that the Father and Son (two personages) were present during his inaugural manifestation from heaven.

May 1831 – November 1833 / John Alger

A. Karl Larson and Katharine Miles Larson, eds., Diary of Charles Lowell Walker (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 1980), 2:755–56 [recorded 2 February 1893].

ca. 12 November 1831 / Lorenzo Snow

Deseret Evening News, no. 207 (20 July 1901), 22.

ca. 27 November 1832 / Joseph Smith historical document

Dean C. Jessee, ed., Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Press, 2002), 9–12.

See: Only one Personage appears in the 1832 account

9 August 1834 – 9 August 1835 / Samuel W. Richards

Young Woman’s Journal, vol. 18, no. 12, December 1907, 537–39.

20 October 1834 / Edward Stevenson

Millennial Star, vol. 48, no. 22, 31 May 1886, 341; Juvenile Instructor, vol. 29, no. 14 15 July 1894, 443–44.

9 November 1835 / Joseph Smith historical recounting

Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, eds., Journals, Vol. 1: 1832–1839 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008), 87–88.

13 November 1836 / Kirtland Temple discourse

Joseph Smith gave “a relation . . . of the rise of the Church and of his experience” inside the Kirtland Temple to “a vast concourse” of people (“4 or 5 hundred”). The Prophet “gave the history of these things, relating many particulars of the manner of his first visions, etc.” (Parley P. Pratt to the Elders and Brethren of the Church of Latter-day Saints in Canada, 27 November 1836, MS, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah). Since Joseph had only one year previously referred to his experience in the grove with two personages as his “first communication . . . [or] vision,” he likely spoke about that event during this meeting.

August 1837 / Mary Horne

Woman’s Exponent, vol. 39, no. 1, June 1910, 5–6.

Conclusion

The eyewitnesses, and the periods of time their recitals cover, demonstrate that Joseph Smith talked about seeing the Father and Son on a regular basis and over an extended period of time -- before he had the 1838 Church history written down.

Endnotes

None